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
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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.
"There's way more food to track than there is with exercise, so I can see how that can get extremely obsessive," he added.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026
I’m as nostalgic as the next Gen X radio obsessive who remembers long rides in my 1980s Mazda, searching the AM spectrum for engaging chatter.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2026
Later, the film veers somewhat off course when it turns into a low-level comic crime caper in which Ha-Chan’s obsessive nature creates some strange situations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
In his opening address on Monday, prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC described how Lamarre-Condon had developed an "obsessive and jealous infatuation" with Baird after a brief romantic relationship.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
We were, as most new parents are, obsessive and a little boring, and nothing made us happier.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
