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cathect

American  
[kuh-thekt, ka-] / kəˈθɛkt, kæ- /

verb (used with object)

Psychoanalysis.

  1. to invest emotion or feeling in (an idea, object, or another person).

Etymology

Origin of cathect

First recorded in 1930–35; back formation from cathectic “relating to cathexis”; cathexis

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It’s unsurprising that a microcosm containing different types of people with little to do but reflect and cathect provided fiction writers with a generative setting, one which everyone from George Eliot to Henry James to Guy de Maupassant took advantage of.

From New York Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.