a. [f. prec. + -AL.]
† 1. Possessed by a deity or by a devil; frantic, mad, furious. Obs.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 538. A fanaticall Enchaunteresse [Joan of Arc].
1581. Savile, Tacitus’ Hist. (1612), 82. The Æduans: but that graue and wise City, assembling the choice of their youth with some of Vitellius Cohortes, discomfited that fanaticall multitude.
a. 1633. Austin, Medit. (1635), 89. Those Phanaticall women of the Gentiles foreknew the Rising of this Starre, as well as Balaam.
† b. Characteristic of a possessed person. Obs.
1600. Holland, Livy, XXXIX. 1031. The men shaking & wagging their bodies too and fro after a fanaticall fashion. Ibid. (1603), Plutarch’s Mor., 1345. Certaine fanaticall cries and voices.
2. = FANATIC a. 2.
1550. Bale, Apol., 96. A Christen mannis obedyence standeth not in the fulfyllyng of fanaticall vowes … but in the faythfull obseruacion of Gods holy preceptes.
1589. Cooper, Admon., 201. The Anabaptists, and some other phanaticall spirits troubling the reformed Churches beyonde the seas, vpon the same example of the Apostles haue gathered, that learning and knowledge is not to bee respected in the choyce of Ministers.
1634. Sanderson, Serm., II. 283. That phanatical opinion, which hath possessed some in these later times, that no Ecclesiastical person might lawfully exercise any Secular Power, was in those days unheard of in the World.
1669–70. Marvell, Corr., cxxxix. Wks. 1872–5, II. 307. Fox, a teacher of some fanaticall people in Wiltshire, did conventicle there.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., VI. § 25. In a word this great Man appears to have been as unintelligible as a Schoolman, as superstitious as a Monk, and as fanatical as any Quietist or Quaker; and, to compleat his character as a Minute Philosopher, he was under strong temptations to lay violent hands on himself.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. Ind., II. 289. The present quarrel originated in a fanatical spirit, which had sprung up, many years before.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., III. xlvi. 308. I call a man fanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinkced, so that he has no sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men who are out of his own track.
† b. In a weaker sense: Extravagant. Obs.
1588. Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, V. i. 20. I abhor such phanaticall phantasims.
† 3. Of or pertaining to the ‘fanatics’ or Nonconformists. Obs.
1678. Hickes, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 318. IV. 46. Many of the fanatical party … hope that the Commons … will grow jealous of these military proceedings.
a. 1695. Wood, Life (1848), 245. Mr. John Fairclough … a non-conforming minister, was buried in the fanatical burial place, near the Artillery yard London.
1703. De Foe, Shortest Way with Dissenters, Misc. 421. The phanatical Party of this Land.
Hence Fanatically adv., in a fanatical manner. Fanaticalness, the quality or state of being fanatical; fanaticism.
1672. Cressy (title), Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church by Doctour Stillingfleet.
1792. Burke, Petit. Unitarians, Wks. x. 57. When men are furiously and fanatically fond of an object, they will prefer it, as is well known, to their own peace, to their own property, and to their own lives; and can there be a doubt in such a case that they would prefer it to the peace of their country?
1833. Keble, Serm., vii. (1848), 157. Those who maintain, profanely and fanatically, that the State, as such, ought not to be of any religion.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. v. 422. The populace of France were fanatically catholic.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. 290. To which the notion of fierceness or fanaticalness is opposed.
