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: an unnaturally excited or distraught woman
Examples of maenad in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
After the dig, the IAA’s conservation team restored, cleaned and reassembled the other fragments of the sarcophagus, revealing its central image: Dionysus, surrounded by his female followers, known as maenads, and half-man, half-goat satyrs.
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Aurora Martínez, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 June 2025
Manson’s maenads — dirty, barefoot examples of Dionysian abandon — provide the most fascinating sequences of QT’s career.
—Armond White, National Review, 26 July 2019
All across its 375 square feet swarm birds, masks and maenads—the besotted followers of the god Dionysus.
—Joshua Levine, Smithsonian, 24 May 2018
The libretto from the premiere has Orpheus being torn to pieces by maenads, the female devotees of Bacchus whose bloodthirsty rampages figure in both the mythology and evidently the historical truth of ancient Greece.
—Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 Apr. 2018
An actor’s dance becomes a slaughter; a bathing nymph turns out to be one of a cluster of handless maenads.
—Douglas Wolk, New York Times, 1 June 2016
Often faces turned up to address the sky, as with the maenads and nymphs whose shapes in Greek sculpture did so much to inspire Duncan.
—Alastair MacAulay, New York Times, 20 June 2017
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Aurora Martínez, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 June 2025
Manson’s maenads — dirty, barefoot examples of Dionysian abandon — provide the most fascinating sequences of QT’s career.
—Armond White, National Review, 26 July 2019
All across its 375 square feet swarm birds, masks and maenads—the besotted followers of the god Dionysus.
—Joshua Levine, Smithsonian, 24 May 2018
The libretto from the premiere has Orpheus being torn to pieces by maenads, the female devotees of Bacchus whose bloodthirsty rampages figure in both the mythology and evidently the historical truth of ancient Greece.
—Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 21 Apr. 2018
An actor’s dance becomes a slaughter; a bathing nymph turns out to be one of a cluster of handless maenads.
—Douglas Wolk, New York Times, 1 June 2016
Often faces turned up to address the sky, as with the maenads and nymphs whose shapes in Greek sculpture did so much to inspire Duncan.
—Alastair MacAulay, New York Times, 20 June 2017
Cite this Entry
“Maenad.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maenad. Accessed 30 Jun. 2025.
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