oedipal
[ed-uh-puh l, ee-duh-]
- of, characterized by, or resulting from the Oedipus complex.
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Origin of oedipal
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for oedipal
Contemporary Examples
It was like an Oedipal thing because Chevy left, and there was a feeling like he left them.
Bill Murray’s Words of Wisdom: On Comedy, the Greatness of In-N-Out, and Searching For Great LoveMarlow Stern
October 10, 2014
He knows how to be a narcissistic fighter and an Oedipal fighter.
“There are two kinds of fighting—narcissistic fighting and Oedipal fighting,” Frank went on.
The idea for these edgy Oedipal works came to Prince when he was looking through a catalogue of de Kooning's Women series.
Word Origin and History for oedipal
Oedipal
adj.
1939, "of or pertaining to desire felt for opposite-sex parent," from Oedipus complex (1910), coined by Freud from Sophocles' play "Oedipus Tyrannus," in which the title character, the Theban hero, answers the Sphinx's riddle and unknowingly kills his father and marries his own mother; from Greek Oedipus. The name was used figuratively in English from 1550s for "one who is clever at guessing riddles," which had adjectival form Oedipean (1620s).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
oedipal
- Of or characteristic of the Oedipus complex.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.