Anankastic

//ænənˈkæstɪk// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An anankastic phrase or utterance.
  2. 2
    An obsessive-compulsive individual. rare

    "Like many anankastics, he suffers from a disturbance in the capacity to act, which is revealed especially as an impediment to beginning something new and completing something."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Imperative, as in the anankastic conditional.
  2. 2
    Characterised by compulsion; obsessive-compulsive.

    "1991: ‘You’re a classic anal-retentive,’ he says, ‘tirelessly absorbed by minutiae, anankastic in the extreme – it’s lucky you have me to deal with the broad sweep of things, to do the abstract thinking.’ — Will Self, ‘Mono-Cellular’, The Quantity Theory of Insanity"

Synonyms

All synonyms
anancastic

Example

More examples

"1991: ‘You’re a classic anal-retentive,’ he says, ‘tirelessly absorbed by minutiae, anankastic in the extreme – it’s lucky you have me to deal with the broad sweep of things, to do the abstract thinking.’ — Will Self, ‘Mono-Cellular’, The Quantity Theory of Insanity"

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀναγκαστικός (anankastikós), from ἀναγκάζω (anankázō, “to force, to compel”).

Related phrases

obsessive compulsive

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.