berserk

noun

1. (historical)Synonym of berserker (“a Norse warrior who fought in a frenzy”).

   “She had heard of his profligacy, his bursts of fierce Berserk-madness; and yet now these very faults, instead of repelling, seemed to attract her, and intensify her longing to save him.”

   “The Professor, with his face flushed, his nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling, was now in a proper Berserk mood.”

adj

1. Furiously, injuriously, or maniacally violent or out of control.

   “After seeing his sister stabbed to death, he went berserk and attacked the killer like a wild animal.”

   “'You went Berserk. I've read all about it in Hypatia.' […] 'You've gone Berserk and pretty soon you'll go to sleep. But you'll probably be liable to fits of it all your life,' Beetle concluded.”

2. (broadly)Bizarre; weird.

   “[T]he writer conjured up a dystopian fantasy more berserk than anything you might find yourself listening to in the small hours at the Stone Circle.”

3. (broadly, dialectal, rare, slang)Wildly joyous; ecstatic.

   “In amongst the strife, Scott McTominay, whose stoppage-time winner against Israel sent Hampden berserk, and Ryan Christie offered signs of an attacking pulse.”

verb

1. (intransitive)To be or become berserk.

   “When great champions went berserking and were angry, they lost their human nature and went mad like dogs.”

   “I suppose losing one hand made Stack especially sensitive to the possible loss of another. The wound was superficial, but he berserked. He killed the native with a riot gun, then turned it on the rest of them. A lieutenant had to bludgeon him into unconsciousness before he could be stopped.”

   “The oncoming horde berserked through the mine field, York field pieces going off in all directions.”

   “Last night we drove through suddenly warring weather. Wind and lightning havocked, berserked in wires, trees.”

   “You grew cool faster when danger lurked, / Yeah, learned a new yearn when senses berserked.”

2. (transitive)To make berserk.

   “He neither knows himself nor his outriders; he berserks a fearful dimension and dismounts, miraculously, in bed!”

   “O holy Virgin, whereabout / Were you when all the swinish rout / Berserked the town? Those legions of the dead / Move only at the lash of lust. / Pray for us, or we die to trust— / Charred matchwood cursing Christ, who also bled.”

   “After a quote from Miller, calling Bukowski the “poet satyr of today’s underground,” and another from Bukowski, “Sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing,” Jon worked to lure an audience to see the “world famous poet, critic and storyteller whose Notes of a Dirty Old Man so far has sold 250,000 copies & whose All the Assholes in the World & Mine berserked the establishment to billy-club screams of outrage.””

   “It can use Slash to physically attack one character or Wrath to berserk the party.”