Fetish

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈfɛt.ɪʃ/

Definitions

1. An object or body part that becomes the focus of intense desire or is believed to hold special power
2. A physical item thought to possess supernatural influence or power ; a sexual attraction centered on a nonliving object or a specific body part
3. Something believed to have mystical force or charm ; an intense erotic interest in a particular item or anatomical feature

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "fetish" is that it began as a Portuguese word for a charm, and its Latin ancestor meant "artificial." The Portuguese "feitiço" described a magical object, and it came from Latin "factīcius," which simply meant something made by human hands, as opposed to something natural. In the Portuguese trade and religious contacts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the term was applied to objects that West African peoples treated as charged with spiritual power, and European observers used it to describe what they took to be superstitious idols. The word then passed into French as "fétiche," and from there into English. Its sense of an object invested with mystical force kept its early associations with religious and colonial encounters. The erotic sense, an intense fixation on a particular object or body part, came later, in the nineteenth century, when Freud and others adopted the term for sexual attachments to inanimate things. "Fetish" is a doublet of "factitious," which descends from the same Latin source and kept the older meaning of "made or artificial."

Synonyms: obsession, fixation, preoccupation

Antonyms: indifference, disinterest