Entry · catalog no. 0010
mad
/ — /pending
adverb · New York City · 2026
✓ Verified
1.
Very; a great many. "Mad people" means a crowd; "mad tired" means exhausted. An intensifier, and a separate word from mad meaning angry.
“It was mad people outside the venue.”
Origin & Attribution
New York City Black and Latino speech, carried out of the boroughs by hip-hop from the 1980s onward until it became one of the most recognizable markers of a New York accent. Documented in Geneva Smitherman's Black Talk and treated in the scholarship on New York City English as an intensifier with African American English roots.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
New York City · 2026
Spoken by
New York City
$MADThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
12/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2026
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Geneva Smitherman, Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner — book · 1994
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceMichael Newman, New York City English — book · 2014
submitted
See also