OCD

English

OCD (uncountable)

(medicine, psychology) Initialism of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- 2025 October 20, Lucy Mangan, “My OCD is back. It's exhausting and awful, but this time I'm ready”, in The i Paper‎^[1], archived from the original on 3 November 2025:
  All of which is to say – my OCD is back. For those of you who have not had the displeasure, OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it is an absolute arseache. Again, at best. Utterly debilitating and life-ruining at worst.
(medicine) Initialism of osteochondritis dissecans.
(medicine) Initialism of osteochondrodysplasia
(publishing, history) Initialism of Oxford Classical Dictionary.
Coordinate term: OCT

obsessive-compulsive disorder — see obsessive-compulsive disorder

OCD (comparative more OCD, superlative most OCD)

(figurative, sometimes offensive) Exhibiting an obsessive tendency.
- 2015, “Out of the Closet”, in One Big Happy, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Prudence (Kelly Brook):
  Three years and you still have your ex's things? Lizzy, I knew you were uptight and OCD, and often humorless.
- 2020, Leigh Whannell, The Invisible Man, spoken by Adrian Griffin:
  So I wanted to get us some simple takeout but of course, I started obsessing over what you'd be in the mood for. Hence, we have the OCD buffet of sushi, steak, and pasta.

The figurative use of the term OCD to refer to someone who exhibits an obsessive tendency is both in widespread usage and considered mostly inaccurate and even offensive by some who consider the use as both reflecting and encouraging misunderstanding of obsessive-compulsive disorder and harming those with the disorder.^[1]^[2] The idea that being anal is synonymous with OCD is largely misguided, and being punctilious in an egosyntonic way has more in common with OCPD than with OCD, which is egodystonic.

OCD

^ Fatima Tipu (22 February 2015), “No, Your Quirks Aren't 'OCD'”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 30 December 2021
^ “Why we challenge OCD misuse”, in OCD-UK, 22 December 2020, retrieved 30 December 2021