Adjacent Words

Fixation definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FIXA'TION, n.
1. The act of fixing.
2. Stability; firmness; steadiness; a state of being established; as fixation in matters of religion.
3. Residence in a certain place; or a place of residence. [Little used.]
To light, created in the first day, God gave no certain place or fixation.
4. That firm state of a body which resists evaporation or volatilization by heat; as the fixation of gold or other metals.
5. The act or process of ceasing to be fluid and becoming firm; state of being fixed.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely [syn: arrested development, fixation, infantile fixation, regression]
2: an unhealthy and compulsive preoccupation with something or someone [syn: obsession, fixation]
3: the activity of fastening something firmly in position
4: (histology) the preservation and hardening of a tissue sample to retain as nearly as possible the same relations they had in the living body [syn: fixation, fixing]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 14th century the act, process, or result of fixing, fixating, or becoming fixated: as a. a persistent concentration of libidinal energies upon objects characteristic of psychosexual stages of development preceding the genital stage b. stereotyped behavior (as in response to frustration) c. an obsessive or unhealthy preoccupation or attachment

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 the act or an instance of being fixated. 2 an obsession, concentration on a single idea. 3 fixing or being fixed. 4 the process of rendering solid; coagulation. 5 the process of assimilating a gas to form a solid compound. Etymology: ME f. med.L fixatio f. fixare: see FIX

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fixation Fix*a"tion (f[i^]ks*[=a]"sh[u^]n), n. [Cf. F. fixation.] 1. The act of fixing, or the state of being fixed. An unalterable fixation of resolution. --Killingbeck. To light, created in the first day, God gave no proper place or fixation. --Sir W. Raleigh. Marked stiffness or absolute fixation of a joint. --Quain. A fixation and confinement of thought to a few objects. --Watts. 2. The act of uniting chemically with a solid substance or in a solid form; reduction to a non-volatile condition; -- said of gaseous elements. 3. The act or process of ceasing to be fluid and becoming firm. --Glanvill. 4. A state of resistance to evaporation or volatilization by heat; -- said of metals. --Bacon.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(fixations) If you accuse a person of having a fixation on something or someone, you mean they think about a particular subject or person to an extreme and excessive degree. The country's fixation on the war may delay a serious examination of domestic needs. N-COUNT: usu sing, usu with supp

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Fixing. 2. Fixedness, fixity, fixture, firmness, stability.

Moby Thesaurus

Freudian fixation, anchorage, arrest, arrestation, arrested development, arrestment, blockage, blocking, check, clogging, closing up, closure, colonization, complex, compulsion, confirmation, constriction, cramp, craze, deep-rootedness, deep-seatedness, delay, detainment, detention, embedment, entrenchment, establishment, fascination, father fixation, fetish, fixed idea, fixedness, fixity, fixture, foot-dragging, foundation, hampering, hang-up, hindering, hindrance, holdback, holdup, hypercathexis, idee fixe, immobility, impediment, implantation, inaction, inactivity, inauguration, infantile fixation, infatuation, infixion, inhibition, initiation, installation, installment, interference, interruption, investiture, inveteracy, irresistible impulse, kick, let, libido fixation, lodgment, mania, monomania, mooring, morbid drive, mother fixation, motionlessness, negativism, nuisance value, obsession, obsessive compulsion, obstruction, obstructionism, occlusion, opposition, parent fixation, peopling, plantation, population, possession, pregenital fixation, preoccupation, prepossession, regression, repression, resistance, restraint, restriction, retardation, retardment, retreat to immaturity, ruling passion, setback, settlement, settling, squeeze, stabilization, stranglehold, stricture, suppression, thing, tic