gold fever
Rush for riches
Gold fever is an intense, often irrational excitement about the prospect of finding gold or getting rich quickly.
The term emerged from nineteenth-century gold rushes, when thousands abandoned their lives to chase rumors of easy wealth: Gold fever swept through the town when nuggets were found upstream.
The phrase now applies to any obsessive pursuit of sudden riches.
Lateral camera traverse
- miningExtracting earth's resources
- prospectorOne seeking valuable deposits
- claimStatement of ownership or truth
- stakingRisking something valuable
nuggets · placer · sluice · pickaxe · shovel · excavation · ore · lode
Yukon gold rush region
- CaliforniaWest coast megastate
- 49ers1849 gold seekers
- YukonNorthwestern Canadian territory
- Sutter's Mill1848 gold discovery location
boomtowns · stampede · migration · frontier · goldfields · diggings · motherlode · bonanza
Intense, consuming obsession
- frenzyViolent mental agitation
- crazeShort-lived popular obsession
- madnessMental derangement or folly
- deliriumAcute mental disorientation
intoxication · fixation · compulsion · single-mindedness · all-consuming · wild-eyed · driven · relentless
Excessive desire for riches
- covetousnessExcessive desire for possessions
- acquisitivenessDesire to gather wealth
- insatiabilityInability to feel satisfied
- hoardingExcessive accumulation of goods
rapacity · moneygrubbing · speculation · get-rich-quick · plunder · exploitation · profiteering · claim-jumping
panning
Lateral camera traverse
- miningExtracting earth's resources
- prospectorOne seeking valuable deposits
- claimStatement of ownership or truth
staking · nuggets · placer · sluice · pickaxe · shovel · excavation · ore · lode · diggers
Klondike
Yukon gold rush region
- CaliforniaWest coast megastate
- 49ers1849 gold seekers
- YukonNorthwestern Canadian territory
Sutter's Mill · boomtowns · stampede · migration · frontier · goldfields · diggings · motherlode · bonanza · El Dorado
mania
Intense, consuming obsession
delirium · intoxication · fixation · compulsion · single-mindedness · all-consuming · wild-eyed · driven · relentless · possessed
avarice
Excessive desire for riches
- covetousnessExcessive desire for possessions
- acquisitivenessDesire to gather wealth
- insatiabilityInability to feel satisfied
hoarding · rapacity · moneygrubbing · speculation · get-rich-quick · plunder · exploitation · profiteering · claim-jumping · swindling
- American folklorePaul Bunyan, tall tales, folk heroes, John Henry, folk narratives
- desireswant, wish, desire, wanting, yearning
- Gold Rushgoldfield, prospectors, sluice, forty-niners, Sutter's Mill
- greedgreed, avarice, covetousness, cupidity, materialism
- KlondikeKlondike, stampeders, sourdoughs, sourdough, prospectors
- mining historyminers, pickaxes, silver mining, prospectors, mining claims
gold fevercontentment
Peaceful satisfaction with circumstances
satisfaction · indifference · apathy · complacency · lack of ambition
gold feverasceticism
Severe self-denial practice
renunciation · anti-materialism · spiritual detachment · monasticism · minimalism
gold feverpoverty
Severe lack of resources
destitution · want · penury · indigence · impoverishment
gold, fever, golden, gild, gilded, gilding, febrile, goldmine, goldsmith