gold fever

plural gold fevers · alternative gold-fever

1. countableuncountableA feverish obsession with seeking gold ore; an era (figuratively an epidemic) during which this obsession grips a large number of people.

   He caught a real bad case of the gold fever that was going around at the time.

   3 more examples

   That was during the gold fever, when strangers descended on the town and all the shovels were plum sold out at the general store.

   It appears that a compositor had been engaged for the Northern Territory Times, and for a considerable time the editor seems to have led a comparatively unruffled existence; till in an evil hour the compositor was smitten with gold fever, and struck work.

   1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 227

   Johns worked with the gold-fever in his veins and urged the camels on.

   1931, Ion L. Idriess, Lasseter's Last Ride, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 101

   Synonyms: gold colic, gold hunger, gold mania, gold rush, gold thirst, yellow fever

2. countablefigurativelyuncountableAn excessive craving for profit.