Meaning & use
demented
Suffering from a serious decline in mental function, especially memory and reasoning, typically due to illness or age.
See it in a sentence
The nursing home cares for several residents who have become demented in recent years.
Informally, he called the plan a demented idea that could never actually work.
A note on using this word
In clinical contexts demented describes dementia; in casual speech it is used loosely and often rudely to mean 'crazy' or 'absurd'.
Words with a similar meaning
senile
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
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