fetish
English
WOTD – 8 October 2008
Alternative forms
- fetich (dated [18th c.–present])
Etymology
Borrowed from French fétiche, from Portuguese feitiço, from Latin factīcius (“artificial”). Doublet of factitious.
Pronunciation
- (UK, US) enPR: fĕtʹĭsh, fēʹtĭsh, IPA(key): /ˈfɛt.ɪʃ/, /ˈfiː.tɪʃ/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛtɪʃ, -iːtɪʃ
Noun
fetish (plural fetishes)
- Something which is believed to possess, contain, or cause spiritual or magical powers; an amulet or a talisman. [from the early 17th c.]
- 1958, Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King:
- The idols and fetishes were being dressed up and whitewashed, receiving sacrifices.
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- Sexual attraction to or arousal at something abnormally sexual or nonsexual, such as an object or a nonsexual part of the body. [from the early 19th c.]
- Synonym: paraphilia
- I know a guy who has a foot fetish.
- a fetish for leather
- 1985, Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page 163:
- The first time, I was confused. His needs were obscure to me, and what I could perceive of them seemed to me ridiculous, laughable, like a fetish for lace-up shoes.
- An irrational, or abnormal fixation or preoccupation; an obsession. [from the 19th c.]
- a fetish for deficit reduction
- 1912 February–July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., OCLC 17392886; republished as “On the Arizona Hills”, in A Princess of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1917, OCLC 419578288, page 6:
- However, I am not prone to sensitiveness, and the following of a sense of duty, wherever it may lead, has always been a kind of fetich with me throughout my life; which may account for the honors bestowed upon me by three republics and the decorations and friendships of an old and powerful emperor and several lesser kings, in whose service my sword has been red many a time.
- 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 22, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], OCLC 2603818:
- We have a feeling that it must be "honest" work, because it is hard and disagreeable, and we have made a sort of fetish of manual work.
Derived terms
- fet
- fetishism
- fetishist
- fetishistic
- fetishize
- fetishlike
- fetish-man
- fetish priest
- fetishwear
- finish fetish
Translations
something nonsexual which arouses sexual desire
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something believed to possess spiritual or magical powers
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irrational or abnormal fixation
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Anagrams
- feiths, thiefs