Pronunciations (4)
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/ˈmeɪhɛm/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
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/ˈmeɪˌ(h)ɛm/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
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[ˈmeɪ̯ˌhɪ̟m]
Pronunciation notes
- pin-pen-merger
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ˈmeɪhɛm
Noun
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.
Usage- UK usage
- Historical
- Uncountable
- usually
- Examples
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to commit mayhem
More examples (1)
A man's limbs, (by vvhich for the preſent vve only underſtand thoſe members vvhich may be uſeful to him in fight, and the loſs of vvhich only amounts to mayhem by the common lavv) are alſo the gift of the vviſe creator; to enable man to protect himſelf from external injuries in a ſtate of nature. […] [W]hatever is done by a man, to ſave either life or member, is looked upon as done upon the higheſt neceſſity and compulſion. Therefore if a man through fear of death or mayhem is prevailed upon to execute a deed, or do any other legal act; theſe, though accompanied vvith all other the requiſite ſolemnities, are totally void in lavv, […]
The criminal offence of maiming a person by depriving them of the use of any of their limbs.
Usage- US usage
- broadly
- Uncountable
- usually
- Examples
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More examples (1)
There is a story told of a case where a notorious character was charged with the unusual crime of "mayhem"—biting off another man's finger. The defendant's counsel secured adjournment after adjournment—no one knew why. […] He [the defendant] had not a tooth in his head. The delay had been advantageously employed.
Often preceded by to cause or make: great confusion, destruction, disorder, or trouble; chaos, turmoil; (countable) an instance of this.
Usage- Figurative
- Uncountable
- usually
- Examples
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In all the mayhem, some children were separated from their parents.
What if the legendary hero Robin Hood had been born into the mayhem of the 20th century?
More examples (7)
We terrified the mare and foal. / The fox stood still and far too bold. / So we strung him up, brush neatly folded— / Mayhem, maybe.
In the 1870's, a young newspaper editor named Henry George walked the streets of San Francisco lamenting the paradoxical economic mayhem that lay all around him.
Yes, I can understand how people were shocked and outraged by the verdict in the Rodney King trial. But, my friends, there is simply no excuse for the mayhem that followed.
Jack lifted the binoculars to his eyes, and it was difficult not to laugh at the utter mayhem. Faeries ripped plumes from helmets; soldiers found their pistols dangled just out of reach.
On Friday, amid increased traffic from the Outside Lands music festival, a number of self-driving cards seemed to glitch. One TikTok user recorded a Cruise vehicle causing "mayhem" outside of the festival where it was stuck at an angle in the middle of the street.
Andrew and Fiona Eyre, both 52, from Sheffield, had been looking forward to their trip to Paris since booking it in September, but their train was also cancelled. "It was absolute mayhem and the lack of communication was just disgusting," Andrew said.
[…] I heard a loud crashing noise, like a big tray of dinner plates hitting the floor. Then shouts of "get down" and "shots fired," as the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner descended into mayhem.
Violent conduct, especially the violent infliction of injury on a person or thing.
Usage- Figurative
- Uncountable
- usually
- Examples
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The fighting dogs created mayhem in the flower beds.
More examples (1)
This same man, after failing through intimidation to elicit from me the names of our editorial contributors, against giving which he knew me to be pledged, beat himself weary upon me with a raw hide, I not resisting, and then pantingly threatened me with permanent disfiguring mayhem, if ever again I should introduce his name into print, […]
"Tell me," I said, "when one surrenders his personal feelings to his professional feelings, may not the action be defined as a sort of spiritual mayhem?"
More examples (1)
Well, it's a funny thing, but I can't get rid of the impression that at some point in my researches into the night life of London yestreen I fell upon some person to whom I had never been introduced and committed mayhem upon his person.
Verb
To commit the criminal offence of mayhem (noun sense 1) on (someone); to maim.
Usage- Archaic
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (3)
It is a gentle holineſſe […] to riſe vp in routes and fight againſt chriſten men, and deſtroy […] many a good religious houſe, ſpoyled, meyhemed, ⁊ ſlaine many a good vertuous man, robbed, polluted, and pulled downe manye a goodly church of Chriſt.
The breache of the Peace that may be practiſed againſt the perſon, climbeth to the deſtruction of the perſon, by ſundry degrees: as by Threates, Affray or aſſault, and violent and malicious ſtriking, and beating, vvounding, mayheming and killing.
Note the life and members of euery ſubiect are vnder the ſafegard and protection of the King, […] to the end that they may ſerue the King and their Countrie when occaſion ſhall be offered. Nay, the Lord of the Uilleine for the cauſe aforeſaid cannot mayheme the Uilleine, but the King ſhall puniſh him for mayinhing [maiming] of his ſubiect (for that hereby hee hath diſabled him to doe the King Seruice) by fine, ranſome, and impriſonment vntill the fine and ranſome bee paid.
To violently inflict injury on (someone); to injure, to wound.
Usage- Archaic
- Figurative
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
The law had regarded them [black people] as mere chattels; and it had passed into a proverb in the nation, that they had "no rights which white men were bound to respect." To buy, to sell, to task, to whip, to mayhem this race at will, had been from immemorial days a right which the now subjugated people [the Confederate States of America] had claimed and exercised, and which had been conceded and admitted in their previous union with their conquerors [the Union].
Outside the enclosures a parade of pugs went solemnly through their exercises—skipping rope, mayheming the punching bags, pawing the air at invisible opponents.
Noun
the willful and unlawful crippling or mutilation of another person
- Broader terms
violent and needless disturbance
- Synonyms
- Broader terms