It is a word that my father used to describe certain individuals. I never knew what it meant, but the context always suggested that it was not a compliment.
This afternoon, my brother called to chat. He said that he had been recounting an anecdote to his wife; he described a story that I told him regarding a conversation with our father in which the term energúmeno had come up. He said that after their dinner conversation, they went home and looked it up in her Spanish/English dictionary.
Lo and behold, there was the word. It wasn’t a confabulation but a real Spanish word. The meaning? The dictionary said possessed by demon spirits. My Google Translate app said, madman. My intuition said, in need of a serious exorcism. How does one use this word in a sentence?
“Ese pinche Putin es un cabrón energúmeno,” of course.