From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfanaticismfa‧nat‧i‧cis‧m /fəˈnætɪsɪzəm/ noun [uncountable] EXTREMEextreme political or religious beliefs – used to show disapproval SYN extremism The bombing symbolizes the worst of religious fanaticism.
Examples from the Corpus
fanaticism• They marched on, goaded by a fanaticism which made everything possible, a manic gleam in the eye.• Deep anxiety may cause obsessive behaviour, fanaticism or a strict adherence to religion for the wrong reasons.• A madness, an extraordinary fanaticism, took possession of all these new worshippers of the sun.• At the end of the day, of course, it is fanaticism, not literature, that pulls the trigger.• But eventually he was forced to concede that religious and regional fanaticism threatened to overwhelm his reforms.• The boy saw through the fanaticism and found that his sense of chivalry was excited.• The present writer, too, can testify to the fanaticism from discussions at that time with diplomats in London and overseas. 