Meaning of madding AND maddening

[Tom]

Hello everybody again

"Far from the madding crowd" is a famous novel by T. Hardy.

I think the word is MADDENING. What do you think?

Tom

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

I never use the word "madding" unless it's to talk about the novel you referred to. But I think madding would be different from "maddening".

A maddening crowd would be crowd that makes you mad.

A madding crowd would be a crowd that is itself crazy or mad or in a rage.

Amy