Delirium

Definitions: Delirium

Delirium

Noun

1. State of violent mental agitation.

2. A usually brief state of excitement and mental confusion often accompanied by hallucinations.

Date "delirium" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1374. (references)

Etymology: Delirium \De*lir"i*um\, noun. [Latin expression, from delirare to rave, to wander in mind, prop., to go out of the furrow in plowing; de- lira furrow, track; perhaps akin to German geleise track, rut, and English last to endure.]. (Websters 1913)

Domain	Definitions
Computing	Delirium An embedding coordinate language for parallel programming, implemented on Sequent Symmetry, Cray, BBN Butterfly. ["Parallel Programming with Coordination Structures", S. Lucco et al, 18th POPL, pp.197-208 (1991)]. Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
Health	(DSM III-R) an acute, reversible organic mental disorder characterized by reduced ability to maintain attention to external stimuli and disorganized thinking as manifested by rambling, irrelevant, or incoherent speech; there are also a reduced level of consciousness, sensory misperceptions, disturbance of the sleep-wakefulness cycle and level of psychomotor activity, disorientation to time, place, or person, and memory impairment. Delirium may be caused by a large number of conditions resulting in derangement of cerebral metabolism, including systemic infection, poisoning, drug intoxication or withdrawal, seizures or head trauma, and metabolic disturbances such as hypoxia, hypoglycaemia, fluid, electrolyte, or acid-base imbalances, or hepatic or renal failure. Called also acute confusional state and acute brain syndrome. (references)
Literature	Delirium From the Latin lira (the ridge left by the plough), hence the verb de-lirare, to make an irregular ridge or balk in ploughing. Delirus is one whose mind is not properly tilled or cultivated, a person of irregular intellect; and delirium is the state of a person whose mental faculties are like a field full of balks or irregularities. (See Prevarication.). Source: Brewer's Dictionary.
Medicine	Temporary state of mental confusion because of active uncontrolled imagination and faulty judgment. Among the causes are intaxications. Source: European Union. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Delirium is a medical term used to describe a mental state. There are several definitions (including those in the DSM-IV and ICD-10). However, all include some core features.

These include:

impairments of consciousness
confusion and disorientation
cognitive impairments
intrusive abnormalities of awareness and affect, such as hallucinations or innappropriate emotional states.

Delirium should be distinguished from psychosis, in which consciousness and cognition may not be impaired, and dementia which describes an acquired intellectual impairment usually resulting from a degenerative brain disease.

Delirium may be caused by severe physical or mental illness. Fever, poisons (including toxic drug reactions), brain injury, surgery, severe lack of food or water, drug and severe alcohol withdrawal are all known to cause delirium.

It is also referred to as 'acute confusional state' or 'acute brain syndrome'.

Impairment of consciousness

A delirious person may have a clouding of awareness and consciousness. This impairment of consciousness typically fluctates, so the person may be aroused and alert for short periods of time before again relapsing into a clouded state. Fluctation may follow a pattern of diurnal variation, where consciousness levels change as the day progresses. Typically, a delirious person may be more consciousness impaired in the evening and at night.

Confusion and disorientation

Confusion may occur in delirium, where the sufferer loses the capacity for clear and coherent thought. It may be apparent in disorganised or incoherent speech, the inability to concentrate or a lack of goal directed thinking.

Disorientation describes the loss of awareness of the surroundings, environment and context in which the person exists. Disorientation may occur in time (not knowing what time of day, day of week, month, season or year it is), place (not know where you are) or person (not knowing who are).

Cognitive Impairments

Impairments to cognition may include reduction in the function of short or long term memory, attention or problem solving.

Abnormalities of Awareness and Affect

Hallucinations (perceived sensory experience with the lack of an external source) or distortions of reality may occur in delirium. Commonly these are visual distortions, and can take the form of masses of small crawling creatures (particularly common in delirium tremens, caused by severe alcohol withdrawal) or distortions in size or intensity of the surrounding environment.

Strange beliefs may also be held during a delirious state, but these are not considered delusions in the clinical sense as they are considered too short lived. Interestingly, in some cases sufferers may be left with false or delusional memories after delirium, basing their memories on the confused thinking or sensory distortion which occurred.

Abnormalities of affect include any distortions to perceived or communicated emotional states. Emotional states may also fluctate, so a person may rapidly change between, for example, terror, sadness and jocularity.

Duration

The duration of delirium is typically affected by the underlying cause. If caused by a fever, the delirious state should subside as does the severity of the fever.

Accounts of delirium

Sims (1995, p31) points out a "superb detailed and lengthy description" of delirium in The Stroller's Tale from Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers.

Delirium (Sandman)

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Delirium is one of the Endless, fictional characters from Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman.

Delirium is the youngest of the Endless. She is usually quite short, and thin. Her hair changes style and colour constantly, as do her clothes. Her sigil in the galleries of the other characters is a multicoloured, abstract swirl. Her realm is a chaotic, constantly changing mass of colours and strange objects and shapes, and contains a sundial with the inscription "Tempus Frangit" (time breaks, a Latin pun on the phrase "Tempus Fugit", time flies.)

Until seemingly quite recently, although before the time of the Ancient Greeks at least, Delirium used to be Delight. The change in her character is clearly meant to reflect what Gaiman perceives as change in the basis of the human psyche. Most of the time, she is scatterbrained; she often forgets the thread of her conversations, and comes out with offbeat and seemingly inconsequential observations. Todd Klein, the series' letterer, draws her speech as letters which do not quite match in height or line up neatly against a multi-coloured background, to illustrate this. Very occasionally she is able, with an effort, to become more controlled in thought and speech, at which point her speech is drawn more neatly and the background fades to white.

The other Endless all seem to be fond of Delirium, to varying degrees, and protective of her. She in turn is affectionate towards them, particularly Destruction.

Delirium features in many of the most inventive sequences of the series, particularly in the seventh collection, Brief Lives, in which she and Morpheus attempt to track down Destruction. One of the most striking frames of the whole series features Delirium lying on a hotel bed with a bottle of bubble-blowing liquid, blowing bubbles in a variety of impossible shapes - diamonds, crosses, cats, and small alien beings with umbrellas. Also, in a very important moment in the story, when Destiny imparts upon Dream the information and the means by which he may find Destruction, Delirium manages to collect herself so much that her usual mis-matched appearance disappears, and she becomes a very symmetrical creature, reflecting perhaps that in delirium, delight still exists, no matter how painful.

Synonyms: Delirium

Synonyms: craze (n), frenzy (n), fury (n), hysteria (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Drunkenness	Oinomania, dipsomania; delirium tremens; alcohol, alcoholism; mania a potu.
Excitability	Violence; fierceness; Adjective: rage, fury, furor, furore, desperation, madness, distraction, raving, delirium; phrensy, frenzy, hysterics; intoxication; tearing passion, raging passion; anger.
Insanity	Insanity, lunacy; madness; Adjective: mania, rabies, furor, mental alienation, aberration; paranoia, schizophrenia; dementation, dementia, demency; phrenitis, phrensy, frenzy, raving, incoherence, wandering, delirium, calenture of the brain; delusion, hallucination; lycanthropy; brain storm.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Delirium

English words defined with "delirium": blue devils, bubonic plague ♦ Calenture ♦ Deliracy, Delirancy, Deliration, Deliriant, Delirifacient, delirious, deliriously, Delirium tremens, DTs ♦ hallucinating, Himself ♦ Mania a potu ♦ Nervous fever ♦ Oenomania ♦ Phrensy ♦ The horrors, Typhomania ♦ Yellow atrophy ♦ zoopsia. (references)

Specialty definitions using "delirium": Alcohol Withdrawal Delirium ♦ Bell-wavering ♦ D.T., Delirium ebriosorum, Delirium tremefaciens, Delirium, Dementia, Amnestic, Cognitive Disorders ♦ Grimes ♦ Heat Stroke, Horrors ♦ LAOCOON ♦ Maundrel, MEDUSA ♦ Snakes in his Boots. (references)

Etymologies containing "delirium": Delirament, Delirancy, Delirant, Delirate, Deliriant, Delirious. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Delirium" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Czech (delirium), Danish (delirium), Dutch (delirium), French (rave), German (delirium), Latin (delirium, madness), Swedish (delirium, jimjams).

Domain	Usage
Movie/TV Titles	Delirium (2001)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Delirium of the Brave (reference) Delirium Tremens: Stories of Suffering and Transcendence (reference) Digital Delirium (Culturetexts) (reference) Dreaming as Delirium : How the Brain Goes Out of Its Mind (reference) (more book examples)

Theater & Movies	Delirium (reference) Orchid Delirium (reference) (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music	Delirium (reference) Delirium Remixes [CD-SINGLE] (reference) Gates of Delirium (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Delirium of course but so real.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Author	Quotation
Thomas Carlyle	Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	Then she saw a mysterious thing, so mysterious that its like had never appeared to her in the darkest delirium of fever.
Walden	Thoreau, Henry David	He wore a greatcoat in midsummer, being affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was the color of carmine.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Exposure to high doses can cause confusion and delirium. (references)
		Confusion, delirium, intestinal perforation, and death may occur in severe cases. (references)
		Of particular importance are the transient or reversible factors such as infection, delirium, and drugs. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"Delirium" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 98.94% of the time. "Delirium" is used about 94 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	98.94%	93	34,067
Noun (proper)	1.06%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	94	N/A

Expressions using "delirium": Alcohol Withdrawal Delirium ♦ Delirium ebriosorum ♦ Delirium tremefaciens ♦ delirium tremens ♦ Traumatic delirium. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "delirium"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		përçartje (ramble, rant, rave, raving), kllapi (ramble, rave), jerm. (various references)

Arabic		‏الهذيان, ‏البطاح هذيان الحمى, ‏إهتياج (access, ado, agitation, bother, bustling, commotion, dither, ebullience, effervescence, excitation, exciting, ferment, fermentation, flurry, fuss, great rage, in a state, ramp, rampage, sensation, stir, willies), ‏إنفعال (dither, effervescence, emotion, excitement, flurry, furor, impression, passivity, poignancy, redness, temper, thrill, tizzy). (various references)

Bulgarian		бълнуване (raving), полуда (craze, frenzy, madness), изстъпление, делир. (various references)

Chinese		神志失常. (various references)

Czech		delirium. (various references)

Danish		delirium. (various references)

Dutch		delirium. (various references)

Esperanto		deliro. (various references)

Farsi		پرت گویی , هذیان (Maze), سرسام (Maze), دیوانگی (Amuck, Craze, Insanity, Mania, Rage, Rave). (various references)

Finnish		kuumehoure, houreet (fancies, ravings), hourailu (wandering). (various references)

French		transport, délire (delusion). (various references)

German		delirium. (various references)

Greek		παραλήρημα (frenzy, furore, raving). (various references)

Hebrew		�"תר�'שות חזק�" (furor, orgasm), �"זי�" (delusion, fancy, hallucination, stardust, superstition). (various references)

Hungarian		delírium (deliria), önkívület (deliria, ecstasy). (various references)

Indonesian		mata gelap. (various references)

Italian		delirio (rave, raving). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		夢中 (daze, ecstasy, engrossment, trance). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		せ�"もう (a whorl of hair on thehead, cilia, fine hairs, wool shearing), むちゅう (daze, ecstasy, engrossment, in the fog, trance). (various references)

Pig Latin		eliriumday

Portuguese		delírio (frenzy, furor, furore, light-headedness, phrenological, rave, raving). (various references)

Romanian		delir (ecstasy, enthusiasm, madness, mania, raving), onirism, aiurare (wandering). (various references)

Russian		бред (d.t.'s, ramble, rave, raving, wanderings). (various references)

Scottish		breisleach (confusion). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		delirijum, zanos (enthusiasm, fascination, fervor, fervour, flush, inspiration, ravishment, trance), pomahnitalost, bunilo. (various references)

Spanish		delirio (frenzy, rant, rave, raving, ravings, wanderings). (various references)

Swedish		delirium (jimjams), yrsel (dilirium, dizziness, giddiness, vertigo), vansinne (craziness, frenzy, insanity, lunacy, mad, madness), upphetsning (arousal, excitement, fever, incitement, inflammation), hallucinationer (hallucination), feberhallucinationer, feberfantasier. (various references)

Turkish		sayıklama (talking in one's sleep, wander, wandering), hezeyan, çılgınlık (craze, craziness, distraction, escapade, fad, foolhardiness, frenzy, fury, lunacy, madness, nuts, rabidness, rave, raving, ravings, vagary, wildness). (various references)

Ukranian		нестяма, несамовитість (ecstasy, furor, irresponsibility, tear, violence), маячні ідеї, маячня, марення (ramble, rave, raving, wanderings). (various references)

Vietnamese		sự cu�"ng nhiệt (feverishness), sự điên cu�"ng (insaneness). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	delirium. (various references)
Old French	900-1400	reverie. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "delirium": deliriums. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Delirium" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: decipium, defloratum, delerium, deliriam, Delizie, delorsism, delurium, dilirium, velarium. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "delirium" (pronounced duli"rēum)
5	-i" r ē u m	bacterium.
4	-r ē u m	aquarium, atrium, auditorium, barium, crematorium, deuterium, disequilibrium, emporium, equilibrium, Herbarium, honorarium, moratorium, opprobrium, planetarium, tellurium, thorium, yttrium.
3	-ē u m	alluvium, ammonium, axiom, beryllium, cadmium, calcium, cesium, chromium, colloquium, compendium, condominium, consortium, europium, fermium, gallium, geranium, gonium, gymnasium, hafnium, harmonium, helium, holmium, idiom, indium, iridium, lawrencium, linoleum, lithium, magnesium, medium, millennium, minium, myocardium, nephridium, neptunium, niobium, nobelium, opium, osmium, palladium, pandemonium, paramecium, petroleum, Plasmodium, plutonium, podium, polonium, potassium, premium, presidium, promethium, protium, psyllium, radium, requiem, rhodium, selenium, sodium, stadium, strontium, superpremium, symposium, tedium, thallium, titanium, tritium, uranium, vanadium, zirconium.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "d-e-i-i-l-m-r-u"
	-2 letters: limier, milder, milieu.
	-3 letters: demur, dimer, idler, ileum, ilium, imide, lemur, limed, lured, lurid, medii, miler, mired, muled, mured, murid, riled, rimed, ruled.
	-4 letters: deil, deli, derm, diel, dime, dire, dirl, drum, duel, dure, emir, idem, idle, imid, ired, irid, leud, lied, lier, lieu, lime, lire, liri, lude, lure, meld, merl, midi, mild, mile, mire, miri, mule, mure, ride, riel, rile, rime, rude, rued, rule.
	-5 letters: del, die, dim, due, dui, eld, elm, emu, ire, led, lei, leu, lid, lie, lum, med, mel, mid, mil, mir, mud, red, rei, rem, rid, rim, rue, rum, urd.
	Words containing the letters "d-e-i-i-l-m-r-u"
	+1 letter: deliriums.
	+3 letters: demiurgical, multitiered, semidiurnal.
	+4 letters: diverticulum, modularities, multistoried.
	+5 letters: rudimentarily.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

44 65 6C 69 72 69 75 6D

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)

⁼

Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)

Braille (1829, in France) (references)

Morse Code (1836) (references)

-.. . .-.. .. .-. .. ..- --

Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01000100 01100101 01101100 01101001 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#68 &#101 &#108 &#105 &#114 &#105 &#117 &#109

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0044 0065 006C 0069 0072 0069 0075 006D

British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Expression	Frequency per Day
delirium	338
delirium tremens	69
delirium tremor	16
delirium lyrics	10
delirium silence	8
delirium excited	5
delirium discography	4
delirium sandman	4
delirium propellerheads.reason.v2.0.iso	4
delirium dementia	4
delirium game	3
digieffects delirium	3
delirium island king	3
delirium ride	3
delirium sexual	3
delirium lyrics trigger	3
delirium music	3
delirium treatment tremens	3
delirium lyrics silence	3
delirium karma	3
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Delirium

Definitions: Delirium

Delirium

Noun

Specialty Definitions: Delirium

Specialty Definition: Delirium

Delirium (Sandman)

Synonyms: Delirium

Synonyms within Context: Delirium

Drunkenness

Excitability

Insanity

Crosswords: Delirium

Modern Usage: Delirium

Movie/TV Titles

Commercial Usage: Delirium

Books

Theater & Movies

Music

Photo Album: Delirium

Familiar Quotations: Delirium

Thomas Carlyle

Use in Literature: Delirium

Les Miserables

Hugo, Victor

Walden

Thoreau, Henry David

Non-Fiction Usage: Delirium

Usage Frequency: Delirium

Expressions: Delirium

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Delirium

delirium

delirium tremens

delirium tremor

delirium lyrics

delirium silence

delirium excited

delirium discography

delirium sandman

delirium propellerheads.reason.v2.0.iso

delirium dementia

delirium game

digieffects delirium

delirium island king

delirium ride

delirium sexual

delirium lyrics trigger

delirium music

delirium treatment tremens

delirium lyrics silence

delirium karma

Modern Translations: Delirium

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Chinese

Czech

Danish

Dutch

Esperanto

Farsi

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hungarian

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese Kanji

Japanese Katakana

Pig Latin

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Scottish

Serbo-Croatian

Spanish

Swedish

Turkish