# mayhem

Pronunciation: say "MAY-uhm" /ˈmeɪəm/

## Noun

1. A situation in which things are wildly confused and disorderly, or in which trouble and destruction break out.
   - Simple: A situation with a lot of confusion, trouble or damage.
   - _A burst water main caused mayhem during the morning rush hour._
   - _Amid the mayhem of moving day, nobody noticed that the cat had slipped out._
2. The infliction of violent injury or damage on a person or thing.
   - Simple: Violent harm or damage done to someone or something.
   - _Raccoons wreaked mayhem on the garbage cans, ripping every bag open._
   - _Critics complained that the film lingers on bloody mayhem for two full hours._
3. The maiming of a person by depriving them of the use of a limb needed for defense or protection.
   - Simple: Badly hurting someone so they lose the use of a body part they need to defend themselves.
   - _Prosecutors added a charge of mayhem because the victim lost the use of his right hand._
   - _The defendant was convicted of mayhem for crushing the shopkeeper's fingers with a hammer._

## Verb

4. To commit mayhem; to maim a person. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To commit the crime of mayhem by badly hurting someone's body.
   - _Court records show that he mayhemed a farmhand in a quarrel over wages._
   - _The statute set a heavy penalty for anyone found to mayhem a neighbor._

## Origin

From Middle English mayme, mahaime, from Anglo-Norman mahaim ("mutilation"), from Old French meshaing ("bodily harm, loss of limb"), from Proto-Germanic *maidijaną ("to cripple, injure"), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- ("to change"); compare Old Norse meiða ("to injure") and see mad. Another possible origin traces the Old French to Provençal maganhar, from mal ("evil") + ganhar ("to obtain, receive"), literally "to receive something evil". It first meant the crime of maiming, and the sense "chaos" may have arisen from a popular misunderstanding of the journalese phrase "rioting and mayhem".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/mayhem (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).