Scott OstlerToby Rose
Glenn Garvin
see also go berserk
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Combine a bear with a shirt and what do you get? A cuddly, honey-loving, ursine pal, perhaps. Combine the words bear and shirt however, at least in Old Norse, and you get something quite different. Our English word berserk comes from the Old Norse noun berserkr, which is likely a combination of ber- (“bear”) and serkr (“shirt”). According to Norse legend, berserkers were not ones to say “Oh bother” when faced with sticky situations—they were warriors who wore bearskin coverings and worked themselves into such frenzies during combat that they became immune to the effects of steel and fire. Berserk was borrowed into English (first as a noun referring to such a warrior) in the 19th century, when interest in Scandinavian myth and history was high. It was considered a slang term at first, but it has since gained broader use.
Examples of berserk in a Sentence
Michael O'Sullivan, Anchorage Daily News, 9 Feb. 2023
The word berserk exists in our dictionaries thanks to the Norse tales of these superhuman warriors.
—Stephen C. George, Discover Magazine, 21 Mar. 2022
The sort of wannabe cult action-comedy that gets off on its own displays of horrible behavior and listless set pieces, this Santa-goes-berserk story wants to be a new alt-holiday classic.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 1 Dec. 2022
In the first scene, a chimpanzee goes berserk on the set of a sitcom, a moment of absurd, bloody terror that becomes a motif and a thematic key.
—New York Times, 20 July 2022
Markets went berserk, there was a bond meltdown, and the country’s prime minister ultimately lost her job.
—Nicole Goodkind, CNN, 17 Nov. 2022
Throughout Friday’s game, both were on the bench in sweatsuits going berserk over big plays and celebrating teammates’ success.
—Chris Fedor, cleveland, 5 Nov. 2022
But — for reasons that can’t quite be explained — the film’s name and a tale of a twister sucking up sharks from the ocean and flinging them across Los Angeles went berserk on social media the night of its release on Syfy.
—Alex Ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Nov. 2022
Chris Richards, Washington Post, 19 Nov. 2023
The bounce is outrageous, the handclaps are berserk, and Myaap is as restless as ever, even rapping through the soaring chorus when most would just use it as a breather.
—Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 3 Nov. 2023
Dude started another fight, but this was even more berserk than the first.
—Junot Díaz, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023
The emotions that animate finance are frequently berserk.
—WIRED, 26 Sep. 2023
In the past year, the real-estate market has, well, gone berserk.
—Alyssa Shelasky, Curbed, 16 Feb. 2022
But even that doesn’t seem to explain why some insist on the infallibility of AI, particularly since there are plenty of sci-fi films and TV shows that highlight AI that has gone berserk.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes, 2 May 2022
Mitch McConnell has gone predictably berserk over the prospect of increasing the inheritance tax by taxing capital gains at death.
—Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 18 June 2021
Besides equipment, the hunt for drugs has been equally berserk.
—Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 4 May 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'berserk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Berserk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/berserk. Accessed 27 Jun. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
berserk
1 of 2 adjective
ˌbər-
berserk
2 of 2 nounAdjective
from early Norse berserkr, from ber- (derived from the word for "bear") and serkr "shirt"
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