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Definition of "fetishism" []

  • Worship of or belief in magical fetishes. (noun)
  • Excessive attachment or regard. (noun)
  • The displacement of sexual arousal or gratification to a fetish. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "fetishism" in a sentence
  • "This study had been commenced in his own time by de Brosses, the inventor of the term fetishism, and pronounced by competent modern authorities to have been a powerful and original thinker upon the facts of the infancy of civilization."
  • "Actually, the fetishism is absent -- at least until the climactic battle, in which Saki replaces her sailor fuku with a tight leather outfit and has a yo-yo fight with the school's resident nasty girl (played by J-pop singer Rika Ishikawa), who, for the occasion, dons an S&M ensemble complete with studded-leather shorts and fishnet stockings."
  • "This I call the fetishism which is attached to the products of labor, as soon as they are produced as commodities, and which therefore is inseparable from the production of commodities."