obsession

Forms

obsession f (plural obsessions)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin obsessiō (“action of besieging, blockade”), a noun formed on obsessum, the supine of obsideō (“to besiege”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb obséder goes back to the same Latin verb.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first sense, in Georges Chastellain's account of the deeds of the Duke of Burgundy (1470), was the concrete one of the Latin word, the siege of a town.^[2][5][8] The Duke is said to have freed Rhodes from its obsession.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word took a moral sense in 1590, when Pierre Crespet used it for the state of a person besieged by demons;^[2][5] theologians distinguished such obsession, in which the devil torments a person from outside, from possession, in which he dwells in the body.^[7][4][9] In the classical language it meant the act of importuning someone without respite (Furetière, 1690).^[2][5]

The modern sense of an idea, image or word that forces itself on the mind again and again appears in La Harpe in 1799, by metonymy, but the word stayed rare until 1857.^[2][5][9] It then spread in the 19th century, especially in medical language: it is a term of psychiatry from 1866.^[2][5] In the 20th century it gave obsessif (1900) and obsessionnel (1922), the latter used in psychoanalysis in névrose obsessionnelle, which renders German Zwangsneurose.^[5]

Timeline

• 1470 – Georges Chastellain uses it for the siege of a town.^[2][5]
• 1590 – Pierre Crespet uses it for the state of a person beset by a demon.^[2][4]
• 1690 – Furetière records the sense “act of importuning someone”.^[2][4]
• 1799 – La Harpe uses it for an idea that haunts the mind.^[2][9]
• 1857 – The modern sense becomes common.^[9][5]
• 1866 – It is used as a term of psychiatry.^[2][5]
• 1922 – The derivative obsessionnel appears.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An idea, image or word that forces itself on the mind repeatedly and cannot be driven away, a fixation: la peur de manquer le train devint chez lui une obsession.^[9][10]
2. (psychology) A painful thought or impulse that keeps returning against the subject's will, a symptom of obsessive neurosis.^[9][2]
3. (dated) The state of a person beset, but not possessed, by a demon.^[9][7]
4. (dated, literary) The act of importuning someone without respite.^[9][2]

Word family

• obsessionnel
• obsessif

Related words

• obséder
• obsesseur
• obsidional
• Latin obsessiō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7, 286a
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)