Furious is anger past the point of speech — jaw tight, hands shaking, too angry to argue properly. The parent who finds out where you really were, the driver whose new car has just been scraped in a car park.
You are furious WITH a person and furious ABOUT a thing, and furious AT covers both. It sits at the top of a ladder: annoyed, cross, angry, furious. It also describes speed and effort with no anger anywhere in it — a furious pace, a furious burst of knocking at the door, furious activity in the last hour before the guests arrive. The noun is fury and the adverb furiously, and the film title Fast and Furious keeps that second sense in circulation.
1adjectivefuriousExtremely angry.
“She was furious with him for missing the flight.”
2adjectivefastVery fast, forceful or energetic.
“There was a furious knocking at the door.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Furious came through Middle English from Old French furieus, from Latin furiosus. It displaced the Old English word for the same state, hatheort, built from the words for hot and heart.
Latin
furiōsus
Old French
furieus
Middle English
furious
English, today
furious
From Middle English furious, from Old French furieus, from Latin furiōsus. Displaced native hātheort.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA