Word of the Day!

pandemonium [pan-duh-moh-nee-uhm]

noun:
1 wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.
2 a place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos.

Examples:

Those photos of Cassidy hoisting the Stanley Cup say it all: The Golden Knights’ third coach led Las Vegas’ NHL team to the promised land, fulfilling the prophecy and sending this town into total pandemonium. (Readers' Choice - Best Coach: Bruce Cassidy, Las Vegas Weekly, August 2023)

Residents and parents at the school called the previous situation 'pandemonium', saying cars used to 'fly down' to drop kids off for another school over the road. (Jack Fifield, Glorious English summer hustle has been an Ashes rush like no other, The Oldham Times, June 2023)

It's official: The shirt that turned the actor Colin Firth into a heartthrob - and helped fuel the continuing global Jane Austen pandemonium - is coming to the United States. (Sarah Schmelling, The Darcy Shirt, a Tour Rider, The New Yorker, May 2016)

In an instant pandemonium reigned, for the heavy boulder had mowed down a score of the pursuers, breaking arms and legs in its meteoric descent. (Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Monster Men)

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why - when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. (Kate Chopin, The Awakening)

Origin:

1667, Pandæmonium, in 'Paradise Lost' the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell, 'the high capital of Satan and all his peers,' and the abode of all the demons; coined by John Milton (1608-1674) from Greek pan- 'all' + Late Latin daemonium 'evil spirit,' from Greek daimonion 'inferior divine power,' from daimōn 'lesser god'.

Transferred sense 'place of uproar and disorder' is from 1779; that of 'wild, lawless confusion' is from 1865. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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. (Merriam-Webster)