fetish

plural fetishes · alternative archaic fetich

1. countableuncountableSomething which is believed to possess, contain, or cause spiritual or magical powers; an amulet or a talisman.First known use the early 17th c.

   The idols and fetishes were being dressed up and whitewashed, receiving sacrifices.

   1958, Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King

2. countabledateduncountableanimismA figure representing the spirit of a deity, human, or animal; an idol or voodoo doll.

   "It is not difficult for a negro to believe that he is a Zombie, and a very bad one at that. The step to Baron Samedi is simple. Mr. Big encourages the idea by having the Baron's fetish at his elbow. You saw it in his room."

   1954, Ian Fleming, “Allumeuse”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 110

   1 more example

   This was the trunk of a large wooden doll […] now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. […] The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg.

   1860, George Eliot, chapter VI, in The Mill on the Floss, Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons

3. countableuncountableSexual fixation to or arousal at something abnormally sexual or non-sexual, such as an object or a non-sexual part of the body.First known use the early 19th c.

   a fetish for leather

   2 more examples

   I know a guy who has a foot fetish.

   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.

   1985, Margaret Atwood, “Soul Scrolls”, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, page 163

   Synonyms: kink, objectophilia

4. countableuncountableAn irrational or abnormal preoccupation or fixation on some object or activity; an obsession.First known use the 19th c.

   I've made a fetish of neatness.

   5 more examples

   He has been talking about the same topic for hours on end, I suspect he may have a fetish

   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.

   1912 February–July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “On the Arizona Hills”, in A Princess of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., October 1917, →OCLC, page 6

   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.

   1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC

   The most amusing was the Wastebasket Era, which combined the stacking fetish with a container fixation.

   2010, Mark Osteen, One of Us: A Family's Life with Autism

   A leading candidate for this role in the case of women has been the soap fetish.[…]Given this general cultural background the reasons for the rise of the soap fetish are not hard to find.[…]Guilt, as one of the propellers of the soap fetish, does not confine its thrust to the desire to wash dirty hands or erase the blots from the copybook.

   2014 [1980], John Carroll, “The soap fetish”, in Sceptical Sociology, page 124

5. countableuncountableA recurrent theme of a specific thing.