anankastic
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀναγκαστικός (anankastikós), from ἀναγκάζω (anankázō, “to force, to compel”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
anankastic (comparative more anankastic, superlative most anankastic)
- (linguistics) Imperative, as in the anankastic conditional.[1]
- (psychology) 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
Noun[edit]
anankastic (plural anankastics)
- (psychology, rare) An obsessive-compulsive individual.
- 2012, Matthew R. Broome, The Maudsley Reader in Phenomenological Psychiatry, page 235:
- 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.