adjective
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psychiatry motivated by a persistent overriding idea or impulse, often associated with anxiety and mental illness
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continually preoccupied with a particular activity, person, or thing
noun
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psychiatry a person subject to obsession
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a person who is continually preoccupied with a particular activity, person, or thing
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of obsessive
First recorded in 1910–15; obsess(ion) + -ive
Explanation
If you rush to the carwash every time a speck of dust lands on your fender, your friends probably describe you as obsessive about keeping your car clean. In other words, you care way too much about your car's cleanliness. Whenever someone is wild about something to an alarming or unnatural extent, you can say they're obsessive. If you go berserk when your neighbor’s soccer ball lands in your flowerbed, your neighbors might think you’re obsessive about your garden. If there’s a person you think about every moment, night and day, you may be obsessive, or maybe you’re just in love.
Vocabulary lists containing obsessive
Achievement First 5th Grade IA 1 Words
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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.
Tolkien obsessive – and his son Peter McGee are collaborating with screenwriter Philippa Boyens on a new “Lord of the Rings” film, for one.
From Salon • May 21, 2026
“Things start to get obsessive and take up more time,” says Talib.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 4, 2026
For months, construction of the ballroom has been of obsessive importance to Trump.
From Slate • Apr. 28, 2026
Relationships with a seal, an elephant and a rhino, for example — obsessive, protective, loving friendships — all seemed to end if not in outright tragedy, then in shattering heartbreak.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 21, 2026
Noisy, active, obsessive, eccentric—with a dervishlike mind that spiraled from one scientific question to the next—Thomas Morgan was a professor of zoology at Columbia University.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
