Crossword clues for fetish
fetish
- Charm believed to embody magical powers
- Fixation of sorts
- Obsession
- A charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers
- Excessive or irrational devotion to some activity
- Object believed to have magical powers
- Worshipped object
- Search to capture alien life? It’s an obsession
- Fixation with France and French - want to be guillotined!
- Romeo in drama's Brosnan?
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fetich \Fe"tich\, Fetish \Fe"tish\, n.[F. f['e]tiche, from Pg. feiti?o, adj., n., sorcery, charm, fr. L. facticius made by art, artifical, factitious. See Factitious.]
A material object supposed among certain African tribes to represent in such a way, or to be so connected with, a supernatural being, that the possession of it gives to the possessor power to control that being.
Any object to which one is excessively devoted.
Fetish \Fe"tish\, n., Fetishism \Fe"tish*ism\ (? or ?; 277), n., Fetishistic \Fe`tish*is"tic\, a. See Fetich, n., Fetichism, n., Fetichistic, a.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"material object regarded with awe as having mysterious powers or being the representative of a deity that may be worshipped through it," 1610s, fatisso, from Portuguese feitiço "charm, sorcery, allurement," noun use of an adjective meaning "artificial."\n
\nThe Portuguese adjective is from Latin facticius "made by art, artificial," from facere "to make, do, produce, etc." (see factitious, and compare French factice "artificial," restored from Old French faitise, from Latin facticius). Via the French word, Middle English had fetis, fetice (adj.) "cleverly made, neat, elegant" (of things), "handsome, pretty, neat" (of persons). But in the Middle Ages the Romanic derivatives of the word took on magical senses; compare Portuguese feiticeria "sorcery, witchcraft," feiticeiro "sorcerer, wizard." Latin facticius in Spanish has become hechizo "artificial, imitated," also "bewitchment, fascination."\n
\nThe specific Portuguese use of the word that brought it to English probably began among Portuguese sailors and traders who used the word as a name for charms and talismans worshipped by the inhabitants of the Guinea coast of Africa. It was picked up and popularized in anthropology by Charles de Brosses' "Du culte des dieux fétiches" (1760), which influenced the word's spelling in English (French fétiche also is borrowed 18c. from the Portuguese word).\n\nAny material image of a religious idea is an idol; a material object in which force is supposed to be concentrated is a Fetish; a material object, or a class of material objects, plants, or animals, which is regarded by man with superstitious respect, and between whom and man there is supposed to exist an invisible but effective force, is a Totem.
[J. Fitzgerald Lee, "The Greater Exodus," London, 1903]
\nFigurative sense of "something irrationally revered, object of blind devotion" appears to be an extension made by the New England Transcendentalists (1837). For sexual sense (1897), see fetishism.Wiktionary
n. 1 Something which is believed to possess, contain, or cause spiritual or magical powers; an amulet or a talisman. (from the early 17th c.) 2 Something sexual or nonsexual, such as an object or a part of the body, which arouses sexual desire or is necessary for one to reach full sexual satisfaction. (from the early 19th c.) 3 (context US English) An irrational, or abnormal fixation or preoccupation. (from the 19th c.)
WordNet
Wikipedia
Fetish may refer to:
Fetish is a compilation album by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, released on June 8, 1999.
Usage examples of "fetish".
There is a great deal in this fetish business, Baas, that good Christians like you and I do not understand.
Maybe there was something within the fetish that made blackballed Bone Gnawers want to kill the homeless.
One hand clasped the wrist of the other, crushing the coypu hair fetish.
Pandaras touched the coypu hair fetish, which he wore on his upper arm, over his shirt.
He t privacy fetish about keeping his door closed at all t so no one could see a former premier danseur helpless on his bed.
As he rejoined the central trail the second time, his flashlight caught a glimpse of color: there, on a high shelf of dripstone, was a collection of Indian fetishes, left hundreds of years before.
I have a hairbrush fetish and you have a ravishing bottom, why would I think that?
And whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been taught to believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from examining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong, that can persuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our devotion.
I was some kind of nympho with a costume fetish, that my job was laughable, that Isobel and I were Thickie and Thickier, barely able to keep up with their not-so-clever quips and implications.
The mushrooms, the fetishes, the wool and the wine, the mascara jars, the poppies, the crickets, the poison arrows, the bravura helixes of juicy smoke all spun like the stars: onward, outward, inward, backward, sideways, upside down, and forever.
Ailim frowned, trying to determine how dangerous the fetish and Menzie could be.
Parties, sacrificing their very reason for existence to the absurd fetish of abstract unity.
Then it was executives, whose gold watch chains, adangle with tiny email-boxes, phones, torches, snuffboxes, and other fetishes, curved round the dark waistcoats they wore to deemphasize their bellies.
All the inglesi he knew seemed to have a fetish about playing cricket.
It was Simon Kimberlin, the rubber fetish wear designer, who first drew my attention to it.