There's a word people around me used to use a lot, phonetically it would spell 'stercus' or 'stircus', I think.
It was used in a context meaning excitable, frenzied, frenetic, that kind of thing. Like, you could say that:
Kids who eat lots of sugar tend to go stercus.
I don't know if it's an actual word and I can't find it because I'm butchering the spelling or misremembering how it was said. I'm a native speaker from Australia, if that helps.
I'm not Australian, but I suspect the word is "starkers", a short form for "stark, raving mad".
Although several online dictionaries give the definition "naked" or "completely naked" (i.e. a short form for "stark naked"), Oxford Languages (accessed through a google search for "starkers definition") gives as a second definition:
- mad; crazy.
"his lifestyle would drive me starkers"
OP here, thanks for all your suggestions.
I called my mother, who is a frequent user of the word. She said it's slang that's been used by her extended family for ages. She believes it to be pretty niche slang, potentially regional.
It's not starkers (although a good guess) but essentially, as Weather Vane said, a derivation of 'stir-crazy', meaning the same thing, but just slangified. As I said above, the best synonym would be frenetic, and used in the context of someone being high energy, hyperactive, etc.
Always interesting to explore the extent that Australians will attempt to turn everything into slang. Would love to hear if anyone else, especially from QLD, has heard it used.
So, to answer my own question, what I was looking for doesn't exist, at least in established English - it's just slang, pronounced "stir-cuss"
What about "berserk"?
Berserk (Merriam-Webster): frenzied, crazed — usually used in the phrase "go berserk".
I think you're looking for hysterical. Cambridge defines it in this sense as:
unable to control your feelings or behaviour because you are extremely frightened, angry, excited, etc.
It is, as already answered, 'starkers'. I've always known it as 'stark staring bonkers', but that may be a regional thing. Depends also on the accent it's spoken in, so Aussi would allow for a tentative spelling thereof.
