"driving to distraction, crazy-making," 1743, present-participle adjective from madden. Related: Maddeningly.

type of plant (in modern use Rubia tinctorum) yielding a valuable dyestuff, Old English mædere and Old Norse maðra, from PIE *modhro- "dye plant" (source also of Old High German matara "madder," Polish modry, Czech modry "blue").

"becoming mad, acting madly, raging, furious," 1570s, present-participle adjective from obsolete verb mad "to make insane; to become insane" (replaced by madden); now principally in the phrase far from the madding crowd, title of the popular 1874 novel of love and betrayal in rural England by Hardy, who lifted it from "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife," a line of Gray's "Elegy" (1749), which seems to echo and smooth a line from Drummond of Hawthornden from 1614 ("Farre from the madding Worldling's hoarse discords"). Related: Maddingly.

"somewhat mad," originally also "of or befitting a madman," 1570s, from mad (adj.) + -ish.

late 14c., "created, wrought, fabricated, constructed" (of words, stories, etc.), from Middle English maked, from Old English macod "made," past participle of macian "to make" (see make (v.)). From 1570s as "artificially produced, formed independently of natural development."

To be a made man "placed beyond the reach of want, assured of reward or success" is in Marlowe's "Faust" (1590). To have it made (1955) is American English colloquial. Made-to-order (adj.) "made according to the customer's specifications" is by 1905 in advertisements, from the verbal phrase. Grose's dictionary of slang and cant (1785) has for this word a tart definition: "MADE. Stolen. Cant."

Made up (adj.) in earliest use was "consummate, accomplished" (c. 1600), but this is obsolete. As "put together from parts from various sources" it is by 1670s. As "artificially prepared for the purpose of deception," by 1773. Of minds, "settled, decided," by 1788.  

group of volcanic islands off the northwest coast of Africa, from Portuguese madeira "wood," because the main island formerly was thickly wooded, from Latin materia "wood, matter" (see matter (n.)). As a type of fine wine of the sherry class, 1540s, from the island, where it was produced.

mid-15c., madamoisell, title applied to an unmarried Frenchwoman, formerly in France the title of any woman not of the nobility, from French mademoiselle (12c.), from a compound of ma dameisele (see damsel), literally "young mistress." Contracted form ma'amselle is attested from 1794, mamsell by 1842.

fem. proper name, an assibilated form of Mag, pet form of Margaret. Also used as the name of a barn-owl and a magpie.

MADGE. The private parts of a woman. [Grose, "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," London, 1785]