Fanatic

How to spell fanatic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce fanatic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fanatic mean?

1. nounA person filled with excessive and uncritical enthusiasm for a cause, activity, or interest.
2. adjectiveMarked by or showing excessive, uncritical zeal.

Fanatic in a sentence

• noun

  Her brother is a fitness fanatic who trains before dawn every day.

• adjective

  His fanatic devotion to the club bordered on obsession.

• noun

  Only a true fanatic would queue overnight for the new console.

• adjective

  The campaign attracted a small but fanatic following online.

Where does fanatic come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin fanaticus, which originally meant 'belonging to a temple' or 'inspired by a deity', built on the noun fanum, meaning 'temple' or 'sacred place'. In Roman use the adjective came to describe the frenzied, ecstatic behaviour of temple priests and worshippers who appeared possessed by a god, so the idea of wild, uncontrolled enthusiasm was baked into the word from early on. English borrowed it in the mid-1500s, at first to describe people whose religious zeal seemed mad or excessive, and only later softened it to cover anyone with intense, single-minded devotion to a cause or pastime. The familiar short word 'fan', as in a sports fan, is widely regarded as a clipped form of fanatic that took hold in late nineteenth-century American journalism. A useful spelling cue is that single root 'fan' followed by a single t throughout: there are no doubled letters to worry about, just the unstressed vowels in the middle.

How the word is built

• fan- (from Latin fanum: temple)
• -atic (adjective/noun suffix)