mad rush

mad rush

A wild, frantic hurry to go somewhere or to obtain something. I love watching all the students in a mad rush to get to their classes after the bell. Shoppers across the country are always in a mad rush to pick up products at staggeringly low prices on Black Friday. Let's stop off somewhere for lunch—there's no mad rush to get to the airport.
See also: mad, rush
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

mad rush

A wild hurry, as in I was in a mad rush to get to the bank on time to cash my check, or Why the mad rush? We have lots of time before the concert starts. The use of in a rush for "being in a hurry" dates from the second half of the 1800s, and mad, for "frenzied," serves merely as an intensifier.
See also: mad, rush
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

a mad rush

COMMON A mad rush is when people try to go somewhere or do something very quickly, in an uncontrolled way. There was a mad rush to avoid being left behind. The bomb landed in the middle of the dance floor causing panic and a mad rush for the doors.
See also: mad, rush
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
See also:
  • a mad rush
  • in a mad rush
  • hurry in
  • hurry (someone or something) in(to some place)
  • hurry up and (do something)
  • get a hurry on
  • rush for
  • rush for (someone or something)
  • hurry back to (someone or something)
  • hurry up
References in classic literature
It was with difficulty that the girl avoided the first mad rush of the wounded animal.
Several of the girls, who stood outside guarding the palace, were knocked over by the Saw-Horse's mad rush. Others ran screaming out of the way, and only one or two jabbed their knitting-needles frantically at the escaping prisoners.
Terrible as they were, they could not have commenced to approximate the horrible conditions which must have obtained before Tars Tarkas, the great green warrior, Xodar, the black dator, and I brought the light of truth to the outer world and stopped the mad rush of millions upon the voluntary pilgrimage to what they believed would end in a beautiful valley of peace and happiness and love.
The man went to the ground sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin saw his passion-distorted face and wondered what could be the cause of the fellow's anger.
A mad rush of anger sent him leaping in amongst the combatants.
As big John flung himself upon him, the archer ducked under the great red hands that clutched for him, and, catching his man round the thighs, hurled him over his shoulder--helped as much by his own mad rush as by the trained strength of the heave.
The fellow made a most vicious return assault upon De Conde, attempting to ride him down in one mad rush, but his thrust passed harmlessly from the tip of the outlaw's sword, and as the officer wheeled back to renew the battle they settled down to fierce combat, their horses wheeling and turning shoulder to shoulder.
One short mad rush, and then a stitch in the side, and no more honest play.
What Little Toomai liked was to scramble up bridle paths that only an elephant could take; the dip into the valley below; the glimpses of the wild elephants browsing miles away; the rush of the frightened pig and peacock under Kala Nag's feet; the blinding warm rains, when all the hills and valleys smoked; the beautiful misty mornings when nobody knew where they would camp that night; the steady, cautious drive of the wild elephants, and the mad rush and blaze and hullabaloo of the last night's drive, when the elephants poured into the stockade like boulders in a landslide, found that they could not get out, and flung themselves at the heavy posts only to be driven back by yells and flaring torches and volleys of blank cartridge.
The same masks, the same yells, the same mad rushes, the same bedlam of disguised humanity blowing about the streets in the great gusts of mistral that seemed to make them dance like dead leaves on an earth where all joy is watched by death.
SHREWSBURY boss Sam Ricketts says there is 'no mad rush' to sign two goalkeepers - while an offer for Reice Charles-Cook is still on the table.
It is painful for parents, especially at pick up time a mad rush is seen outside schools that don't have ample parking space.
In the mad rush to make money hand over fist, once serene residential societies are being turn into concrete slums by greedy builders.
One understands why there's such a mad rush in 'breaking' the news first.
If asked to pinpoint one grievous malady that the world of today suffers from, one would not be far off the mark to point the finger at the fetish of 'speed.' As one looks around, all one sees is one mad rush. Not that there's a train to catch, but apparently one that if missed could conceivably lead to earth-shaking consequences if not worse.