Lattice Lace

Moral Insanity: insanity, aberration, craziness, delirium dementia, derangement, frenzy, lunacy, madness, mania.  Of these terms insanity, although not technically used in medicine and psychiatry, is the most general, including in its loose sense almost any mental disorder; in legal use it is applied to those forms which deprive the afflicted person of capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, manage his personal affairs and discharge his social obligations.  Craziness is a vague, popular term for any sort of disordered mental action, or for conduct suggesting it.  Lunacy originally denoted intermittent insanity, supposed to be dependent o the changes of the moon. Madness is the old popular term for insanity in its widest sense, but with suggestion of excitement akin to mania.  Lunacy denotes what is insanely foolish, madness what is insanely desperate.  Derangement is a common euphemism for insanity.  Delirium is always temporary, and is specifically a mental disturbance caused by or associated with disease, as in acute fevers.  Dementia is a general weakening of the mental powers; the word is especially used in psychiatry for mental disorders caused by organic brain diseased. Aberration is eccentricity of mental action due to an abnormal state of the perceptive faculties, and is manifested by error in perceptions and rambling thought.  Mania is a mental disorder implying violence and excitability, often with fixation upon some definite object, emotion, or situation and accompanied by melancholy.  Frenzy is a sudden outburst of emotion leading to excesses of behavior and action. (See delusion; idiocy)

Criminal: abominable, culpable, felonious, flagitious, guilty, illegal, immoral, iniquitous, nefarious, sinful, unlawful, vicious, vile, wicked, wrong;  Every criminal act is illegal or unlawful, but illegal or unlawful acts may not be criminal.  Offenses against public law are criminal; offenses against private rights are merely illegal or unlawful.  As a general rule, all acts punishable by fine or imprisonment or both are criminal in ivew of the law.  It is illegal for a man to trespass on another's land, but it is not criminal; the trespasser is liable to a civil suit for damages, but not to indictment, fine, or imprisonment.  A felonious act is a criminal act of an aggravated kind, which is punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary or by death.  A flagitious crime is one that brings public odium.  Vicious refers to the indulgence of evil appetites, habits, or passions; vicious acts are not necessarily criminal, or even illegal; we speak of a vicious horse.  That which is iniquitous, i.e., contrary to equity, may sometimes be done under the forms of law.  Ingratitude is sinful, hypocrisy is wicked, but neither is punishable  by human law; hence, neither is criminal or illegal.  (Compare sin)

Synonyms Antonyms & Prepositions J. C. Fernald