Run amok

Posted by ESC on April 18, 2000

In Reply to: Run amok posted by brian albinson on April 18, 2000

: I think the Malay 'to kill' is bunoh, not amok. To run amok is to enter into a state of frenzy which may well lead to killing as well as other results of temporary dementai.

Here's what it says in the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris: Amok is "a variant spelling of amuck -- actually much closer to the Malayan word 'amoq,' from which it is derived. The word was originally used to describe the actions of Maylayan tribesmen who, frenzied by hatred and hashish, would rush furiously into hand-to-hand combat."