obsess

obsess — verb

1. to take up so much of someone's thoughts that they cannot focus on anything else

1.verbtransitive / intransitiveC1
Definition

to take up so much of someone's thoughts that they cannot focus on anything else, often to an unhealthy or unreasonable degree — for example, when a teenager keeps replaying a single argument with a friend, or a writer cannot stop checking sales numbers for her new book.

Example

Maya is obsessed with her new puppy and talks about him at every meal.

passive: be obsessed with [noun]

The thought of failing the driving test obsessed Carlos for weeks.

transitive: [thing] obsesses [person]

Common collocations
  • obsessed with the idea
  • obsess over details
  • obsess about losing weight
  • completely obsessed
  • obsessing about the future
Synonyms
  • preoccupy

    more neutral; can describe ordinary worries, not just unhealthy fixation.

  • consume

    stronger and often used of emotions like jealousy or grief that take over a life.

  • fixate on

    phrasal verb; suggests narrowing attention onto one detail, often unreasonably.

Antonyms
  • ignore

    the opposite action: paying no attention rather than too much.

  • dismiss

    to push something out of mind quickly, the reverse of dwelling on it.

Grammar Patterns

be obsessed with [something/someone]

obsess about/over + noun phrase

[something] obsesses [someone]

Usage Note

Most often appears in the passive 'be/get obsessed with'. The active intransitive form takes 'about' or 'over' (never a bare object: not 'obsess the test'). The active transitive form needs an inanimate or abstract subject doing the obsessing to a person.

Common Mistakes

I obsess my homework every night.
I obsess about my homework every night.
the intransitive use needs 'about' or 'over' before the topic.
She is obsessing with the new movie.
She is obsessed with the new movie.
the passive form 'be obsessed with' is far more common than the progressive active.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All four describe thoughts that crowd out other concerns, but they differ in tone and scope. 'Preoccupy' is the mildest and most neutral — your mind is busy with something, but nothing is wrong: 'The exam preoccupied her all morning.' 'Obsess' adds a clear sense of excess and is often unhealthy or repetitive: 'He obsesses over every typo in his emails.' 'Consume' is the strongest of the four; it suggests an emotion or goal has taken over a person's whole life, usually a feeling like grief, jealousy, or ambition: 'Revenge consumed him.' 'Fixate' (often 'fixate on') narrows attention onto one specific detail, sometimes unreasonably: 'The reporter fixated on one tiny error and missed the bigger story.'

obsess ↗preoccupyconsume ↗fixate

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

  • completely obsessed
  • totally obsessed
  • increasingly obsessed
  • secretly obsessed

Phrases

  • become obsessed with
  • stop obsessing about
  • be obsessed with the idea of

Prepositions

  • obsessed with
  • obsess about
  • obsess over

Etymology

LatinEnglish

The word came into English in the early 1500s from the Latin verb 'obsidere', built from 'ob-' meaning 'against' and 'sedere' meaning 'to sit'. The literal Latin image is of soldiers sitting around a city in a siege, and the early English meaning followed a similar idea: an evil spirit was thought to 'sit upon' a person and torment them. By the 1600s, the sense had shifted from spiritual possession to mental fixation, and today it simply describes a thought that refuses to leave someone's mind.