verrückt

Verrückt is a German adjective meaning crazy, mad, or insane. In standard usage it can describe a person with a mental illness, or a behavior or situation that is out of the ordinary. In modern German, the medical sense is usually expressed with more formal terms such as psychisch krank or geisteskrank; verrückt is informal and can be stigmatizing when applied to a person.

Beyond the clinical sense, verrückt is widely used colloquially to denote enthusiasm or extreme behavior. Phrases like verückt nach Musik (crazy about music) or eine verrückte Idee (a crazy idea) are common. The word can take comparative and superlative forms, as in verrückter Plan or am verrücktesten, and is used with nouns such as: der verrückte Plan, die verrückte Idee.

Notes on usage: in casual speech verrückt can be affectionate or humorous, but it can also be offensive if used to label a person with a mental illness. Its meaning is highly context-dependent and relies on tone, setting, and accompanying words. Verbs built with verrückt include verrückt machen (to drive someone crazy) and verrückt spielen (to act crazy), which extend the sense beyond describing a person to describing actions or events.