doolally
/duˈlæli/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.38 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- ""Will you write me an Essay on Corsets?" / "On what?" I asked incredulously—knowing that he had been a distinguished soldier, and suspecting that he had suddenly developed what the soldiers describe as "a touch of the doolally.""
- ""When you've got any God's amount of brains," said Frobisher, "you can pretend to be doolally;[…]""
- "Doolally tap. It's the strain see – and it gets the doolally lads first."
- "They were all doolally of course, except Philomela."
- "[H]e took three sleeping-pills in the night, so he says, and he's all doped and doolally now. I need your help to move him."
- ""Now you're being silly. Promise you'll put me in a home when I get really doolally." / "If you're really doolally you won't know if I have or not." / "So promise.""
Etymology
From doolally tap (“camp fever; (by extension) eccentricity; madness”), with doolally interpreted as an adjective. Doolally is derived from the Deolali transit camp, a former British army camp about 100 miles (160 kilometres) northeast of Bombay, India, used as a transit station for soldiers awaiting transport back to Britain; while tap (“Indian malarial fever”) is from Persian or Urdu تب (tab, “malarial fever”), ultimately from Sanskrit ताप (tāpa, “fever; heat; pain, torment”).
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /duˈlæli/
- British English: /duːˈlæli/
Usage
Inflected Forms
more doolally (comparative)
most doolally (superlative)