adjective
-
psychiatry motivated by a persistent overriding idea or impulse, often associated with anxiety and mental illness
-
continually preoccupied with a particular activity, person, or thing
noun
-
psychiatry a person subject to obsession
-
a person who is continually preoccupied with a particular activity, person, or thing
Other Word Forms
- nonobsessive adjective
- nonobsessively adverb
- nonobsessiveness noun
- obsessively adverb
- obsessiveness noun
Etymology
Origin of obsessive
First recorded in 1910–15; obsess(ion) + -ive
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.
Between scans of the horizon, we bond over “Listers,” the 2025 documentary that turns obsessive birdwatching into both comedy and a tale of devotion.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 7, 2026
In the individual categories, Feinberg said Timothee Chalamet is a clear frontrunner for best actor honors for his portrayal of an obsessive 1950s table tennis star in "Marty Supreme."
From Barron's • Mar. 1, 2026
When Anna, a self-described "Heated Rivalry obsessive", watched the show it reminded her of a world she already knew - the Chinese male-male romance stories she had grown up reading.
From BBC • Feb. 26, 2026
No other Victorian poet could have brought off such a fitful and obsessive work; no one else could have sustained such music and emotion for more than 100 pages.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026
The reason I’ve never dreamed about him was that he belonged already to the world of dreams: discontinuous, irrational, obsessive.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
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.
