obsessive
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Having one thought or pursuing one activity to the absolute or nearly absolute exclusion of all others.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhbsehsivSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əbˈsɛsɪv
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Having one thought or pursuing one activity to the absolute or nearly absolute exclusion of all others.
Excessive, as results from obsession.
Prone to cause obsession.
noun
A person who is obsessed, who has an obsession.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having one thought or pursuing one activity to the absolute or nearly absolute exclusion of all others.
In this sense, obsessive is a strong, expressive word and suggests enthusiasm that has gone past what most people would call reasonable. Among friends, and about hobbies, it can be worn proudly; about someone's politics or beliefs it usually sounds like criticism.
- Emotional tone
- Context-dependent
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.