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mayhem

Pronunciation: /ˈmeɪhɛm/

The English word “mayhem” has 6 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The criminal offence of maiming (“seriously wounding”) a person such that their ability to defend or protect themselves is weakened or completely removed; (countable) an instance of this.
  2. The criminal offence of maiming a person by depriving them of the use of any of their limbs.
  3. Often preceded by to cause or make: great confusion, destruction, disorder, or trouble; chaos, turmoil; (countable) an instance of this.
  4. Violent conduct, especially the violent infliction of injury on a person or thing.

verb

  1. To commit the criminal offence of mayhem (noun sense 1) on (someone); to maim.
  2. To violently inflict injury on (someone); to injure, to wound.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Late Middle English mayehem, maihem, a late form of maym, maim (“disfigurement, injury, mutilation; disfigured person”) (whence modern English maim (noun)), from Anglo-Norman mahaim, mahainne (“mutilation”), and Old French mehaing, meshaing (“bodily harm, loss of limb”). The verb is partly: * from Late Middle English mahaym, maheyme, a late form of maimen, maymen (“to…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.