Fetishism

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The belief that natural objects have supernatural powers, or that something created by people has power over people. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    sexual arousal or gratification resulting from handling a fetish (or a specific part of the body other than the sexual organs) wordnet
  3. 3
    A form of paraphilia where the object of attraction is an inanimate object or a part of a person's body. countable, uncountable

    "That's cross-dressing to you and me and, according to Blanchard and the APA, there are two types – fetishism and autogynephilia."

  4. 4
    a belief in the magical power of fetishes (or the worship of a fetish) wordnet
  5. 5
    An irrational, obsessive belief in the power of some object or action. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
active algolagniaalchemyalgolagniaalgolagnyamphierotismanimal worship

Example

More examples

"This fetishism of the parliamentary majority represents a brutal repudiation, not only of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but of Marxism and of the revolution altogether."

Etymology

From fetish + -ism.

Related phrases

commodity fetishismcorpus fetishismfoot fetishismtransvestic fetishismwet and messy fetishism

More for "fetishism"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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