raging

1. 1
   adjective

   Filled with or showing extreme anger, often of a kind too strong to control.

   She stormed off the field, raging at the referee's call.

   The raging mob surged toward the palace gates.

   Similarfurious, enraged, livid, incensed, infuriated

   Oppositecalm, composed, placid

   Note

   Reserved for people and their moods: a raging father, a raging crowd. When the subject is weather or water, the word shifts to the violent-force meaning, and the anger becomes figurative. Because it is also a participle, it often trails a clause (raging at the referee), where it behaves more like a verb. Before a noun it is the adjective proper.

2. 2
   adjective

   Extreme in degree; intensely strong or severe.

   By midnight she had a raging fever and could barely stand.

   The new restaurant became a raging success within months.

   Similarsevere, intense, burning, roaring, runaway

   Oppositemild, slight, moderate

   Note

   An intensifier that keeps none of the anger: a raging success is simply a huge one. After a verb it turns up in party talk, as in "It's gonna be raging" from Charlie Berens's Guys Trip: 20's vs 30's (2021). There it borrows from the slang verb for partying, and a raging party is a wild one.

3. 3
   adjective

   Volatile and forceful; moving in a violent, unpredictable way.

   The raging torrent tore boulders loose from the canyon walls.

   The raging storm tossed the fishing boats around like toys.

   Similarviolent, furious, turbulent, tempestuous, wild

   Oppositecalm, placid, gentle, tranquil

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of rage.

   The protesters were raging outside the courthouse all afternoon.

   A wildfire is raging across the dry hillside.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here. After a form of be it is the progressive participle (the fire was raging). At the head of a phrase it is the gerund, a verbal noun (raging got him nowhere). The verb behind it covers both temper and weather: people rage, and figuratively so do storms. In Australian, New Zealand and US slang, to rage is also to party hard.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   An open outburst or display of furious anger.

   His drunken raging emptied the bar within minutes.

   The coach's raging on the sidelines drew a penalty.

   Similarranting, raving, fury

   Note

   A countable noun grown from the gerund, so it can take a plural: Patrick Brontë's The Rural Minstrel (1813) speaks of "the ragings of his Father's ire." The singular often blurs into the gerund (his raging emptied the bar). The plural ragings is unmistakably a noun, naming repeated outbursts rather than a single fit.

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