a person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause)
<noun.person> A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject [ adj ]
marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense devotion to a cause or idea
<adj.all> rabid isolationist
Fanatic \Fa*nat"ic\, n. A person affected by excessive enthusiasm, particularly on religious subjects; one who indulges wild and extravagant notions of religion.
There is a new word, coined within few months, called fanatics, which, by the close stickling thereof, seemeth well cut out and proportioned to signify what is meant thereby, even the sectaries of our age. --Fuller (1660).
Fanatics are governed rather by imagination than by judgment. --Stowe.
Fanatic \Fa*nat"ic\, a. [L. fanaticus inspired by divinity, enthusiastic, frantic, fr. fanum fane: cf. F. fanatique. See {Fane}.] Pertaining to, or indicating, fanaticism; extravagant in opinions; ultra; unreasonable; excessively enthusiastic, especially on religious subjects; as, fanatic zeal; fanatic notions.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. --T. Moore.
He is a fanatic about writing personal notes to people along the campaign trail.
She counts herself "a Joyce fanatic," and has been an enthusiast since the day at Hollywood High School when she realized that her English teacher's fairly demanding reading list pointedly omitted "Ulysses."
But iconoclastic riots by fanatic Protestants boded ill for the future of an ambitious artist.
But it had to wait for his present role, playing a hilariously fanatic fan of diva Maria Callas, obsessed with hearing a pirated recording of her singing "La Traviata" in Lisbon.
His father, a doctor and tape recorder fanatic, was best man at Les Paul and Mary Ford's wedding.
And he begged us to 'give up your definition of the fanatic as the fundamentalist or the one who takes Islam literally, for he is not.
But your average softball fanatic regards those divergences from the norm as incidental, and even charming.
The massacre of Palestinians by a Jewish fanatic in Hebron two weeks ago, followed by the suspension of PLO-Israeli talks, delivered a final crushing blow to investor confidence. 'This is a peace market,' said Mr Goldberg.
They work best when the producers find enthusiasts whose fanatic dedication pours from them uncontrollably.
"He's almost a fanatic," she says, "His closets, his shirts.
The typical 'binglang mi' - betel fanatic - is a manual worker, but according to a study conducted by National Taiwan University, students, intellectuals and professionals - mostly men - also chew.
The survey was called a "Heart to Heart Personal Questionnaire." For the question "When I think of kissing I get?" possible multiple-choice answers were: really excited, interested, bored, sick or fanatic.
He was never a fanatic; but he understood, through all the ups and downs of Britain's stormy relationship with the European Community, that there was no other way to go, that Britain's economic future depended upon our membership.
The third resistance force is the Khmer Rouge, which took power in 1975 and killed an estimated 1 million of their countrymen with fanatic agrarian policies before Vietnam invaded and drove them into the jungles in late 1978.
"My brother also was a jazz fanatic, and there were always bands and musicians around our house," said Grant, whose "Mango Tango" is on Gaia Records.
The man who ran the youth hostel where they stayed was a cricket fanatic and challenged the art school to a game. Camberwell was the home of one of the first fine cricket artists, Nicholas Wanostrocht, nicknamed Felix.
But even if he is not overthrown by a fanatic, and joins the two or three Arab leaders in the area who have departed this world through natural causes, it is reckless to assume that his successor will honor his agreements.
"But I fell in love with acting and became a fanatic.
It was a singular image of fanatic, brutal ferocity that would help to explain the depth of those "ancient hatreds" - or titillate a syndication audience nine years later.
Oddly enough, it stood a few yards from where another royal, Princess Elizabeth II of Austria, was stabbed to death in 1898 by a political fanatic.
Neither rampant secularity nor fanatic fundamentalism seems the way for them to go.