Definition of "oedipal" []

• Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Oedipus complex: oedipal conflicts. (adjective)

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.

• "As we approach the critical months of the national campaign, Obama may need to recall the oedipal lessons learned from his step-father or consult his notes on the Balinese cockfight."
• "I would identify as the oedipal crisis of the narrative: the moment at which the father struggles to recognize his daughter as a sexual woman, an individual who has defied him and allowed herself to enter into an illicit passion with a seducer who has no intention of making her his wife."
• "This procession is such a long one that one feels one surely should have a female counterpart to place beside Oedipus — until one remembers that, according to Freud, "oedipal" is an adjective that can be employed for a child of either sex who desires to exclude the parent of the same sex and usurp that position."