gold fever

gold fever (countable and uncountable, plural gold fevers)

1. A feverish obsession with seeking gold ore.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 227:

     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.

2. (figuratively) An excessive craving for profit.

• gold rush