pandemonium
noun
Darcy FreyJoseph W. Benkert 
Did you know?
When John Milton needed a name for the gathering place of all demons for Paradise Lost, he turned to the classics as any sensible 17th-century writer would. Pandæmonium, as the capital of Hell is known in the epic poem, combines the Greek prefix pan-, meaning “all,” with the Late Latin daemonium, meaning “evil spirit.” (Daemonium itself traces back to the far more innocuous Greek word daímōn, meaning “spirit” or “divine power.”) Over time, Pandæmonium (or Pandemonium) came to designate all of hell and was used as well for earthbound dens of wickedness and sin. By the late-18th century, the word implied a place or state of confusion or uproar, and from there, it didn’t take long for pandemonium to become associated with states of utter disorder and wildness.
Synonyms
- ado
- alarums and excursions
- ballyhoo
- blather
- bluster
- bobbery
- bother
- bustle
- clatter
- clutter [chiefly dialect]
- coil
- commotion
- corroboree [Australian]
- disturbance
- do [chiefly dialect]
- foofaraw
- fun
- furor
- furore
- fuss
- helter-skelter
- hoo-ha
- hoo-hah
- hoopla
- hubble-bubble
- hubbub
- hullabaloo
- hurly
- hurly-burly
- hurricane
- hurry
- hurry-scurry
- hurry-skurry
- kerfuffle [chiefly British]
- moil
- pother
- row
- ruckus
- ruction
- rumpus
- shindy
- splore [Scottish]
- squall
- stew
- stir
- storm
- to-do
- tumult
- turmoil
- uproar
- welter
- whirl
- williwaw
- zoo
Examples of pandemonium in a Sentence
Shira Gill, TIME, 5 Nov. 2024
Over the course of the seven-minute short, the hockey game builds in intensity and the announcer rattles off plays faster and faster, with sticks and pucks flying everywhere and the audience joining in on the pandemonium.
—Eric Vilas-Boas, Vulture, 8 Oct. 2024
Police released dramatic surveillance footage showing thousands of people on Orange Avenue when the suspect approached one of the victims and fired a handgun, creating pandemonium as the crowd reacted to the shots and people fled in all directions.
—Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY, 1 Nov. 2024
And that just led to this feeling of absolute pandemonium inside the company.
—Lauren Goode, WIRED, 16 Nov. 2023
See all Example Sentences for pandemonium 
Dictionary Entries Near pandemonium
Cite this Entry
“Pandemonium.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pandemonium. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
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