FANATIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fanatic mean? 

• FANATIC (noun)
  The noun FANATIC has 1 sense:

1. a person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause)

  Familiarity information: FANATIC used as a noun is very rare.

• FANATIC (adjective)
  The adjective FANATIC has 1 sense:

1. marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea

  Familiarity information: FANATIC used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FANATIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

fanatic; fiend

Context example:

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject

Hypernyms ("fanatic" is a kind of...):

enthusiast; partisan; partizan (an ardent and enthusiastic supporter of some person or activity)

Derivation:

fanatic; fanatical (marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea)

• FANATIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea

Synonyms:

fanatic; fanatical; overzealous; rabid

Context example:

rabid isolationist

Similar:

passionate (having or expressing strong emotions)

Derivation:

fanatic (a person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause))

fanatism (excessive intolerance of opposing views)

 Context examples 

Therefore, a local fanatic would begin with them.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So looks the Shakespearean who is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who is assailed by a flat-earth fanatic.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the air—those are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present one—let me break away, and go home to God!'

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But these recriminations, twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was a fanatic in science.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)