"cathect" meaning in All languages combined

See cathect on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

IPA: /kəˈθɛkt/ Forms: cathects [present, singular, third-person], cathecting [participle, present], cathected [participle, past], cathected [past]
Rhymes: -ɛkt Etymology: Back-formation from cathexis and cathectic. A loan creation coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey translating Freud’s German besetzen. Etymology templates: {{back-form|en|cathexis}} Back-formation from cathexis, {{coinage|en|Q1681142|nocap=1}} coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey, {{der|en|de|besetzen}} German besetzen Head templates: {{en-verb}} cathect (third-person singular simple present cathects, present participle cathecting, simple past and past participle cathected)
  1. (transitive, psychology) To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something. Tags: transitive Categories (topical): Psychology Translations (to focus one's emotional energies on): keskittyä tunteellisesti (Finnish), emotional besetzen (German)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for cathect meaning in All languages combined (3.7kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "cathexis"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from cathexis",
      "name": "back-form"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Q1681142",
        "nocap": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey",
      "name": "coinage"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "besetzen"
      },
      "expansion": "German besetzen",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from cathexis and cathectic. A loan creation coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey translating Freud’s German besetzen.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "cathects",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cathecting",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cathected",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cathected",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "cathect (third-person singular simple present cathects, present participle cathecting, simple past and past participle cathected)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English back-formations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with German translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Psychology",
          "orig": "en:Psychology",
          "parents": [
            "Social sciences",
            "Sciences",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1978 [Simon & Schuster], M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled, 2012, Random House (Rider), page 105,\nThe feeling of love is the emotion that accompanies the experience of cathecting. Cathecting, it will be remembered, is the process by which an object becomes important to us. Once cathected, the object, commonly referred to as a 'love object,' is invested with our energy as if it were part of ourselves, and this relationship between the us and the invested object is called a cathexis."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Howard Kamler, Identification and Character, SUNY Press, page 56",
          "text": "Narcissism theorists talk about the work of the narcissism period being a \"cathecting of the self.\" In fact, they should be talking about a \"cathecting of the rudimentary self.\" Since all that gets cathected here are merely individually emerging ego self representations and not ego self structure—the latter amounting to an internally integrated network of agency dispositions—it really makes no sense to talk about cathecting a self per se.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Carroll E. Izard, Human Emotions, page 193",
          "text": "Apparently it is possible for an individual to cathect any person, object, idea, or image. Of considerable importance to a possible analogy between cathexis and the emotion of interest, is Freud's notion that an individual can cathect thought or thinking as well as attention and perception.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
      "id": "en-cathect-en-verb-Ge2K7NLG",
      "links": [
        [
          "psychology",
          "psychology"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, psychology) To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "psychology",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
          "word": "keskittyä tunteellisesti"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
          "word": "emotional besetzen"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/kəˈθɛkt/"
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɛkt"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cathect"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "cathexis"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from cathexis",
      "name": "back-form"
    },
    {
      "args": {
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        "2": "Q1681142",
        "nocap": "1"
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      "expansion": "coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey",
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    {
      "args": {
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        "2": "de",
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      },
      "expansion": "German besetzen",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from cathexis and cathectic. A loan creation coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey translating Freud’s German besetzen.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "cathects",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cathecting",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cathected",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cathected",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "cathect (third-person singular simple present cathects, present participle cathecting, simple past and past participle cathected)",
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English 2-syllable words",
        "English back-formations",
        "English coinages",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English terms coined by James Strachey",
        "English terms derived from German",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Rhymes:English/ɛkt",
        "Rhymes:English/ɛkt/2 syllables",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with German translations",
        "en:Psychology"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1978 [Simon & Schuster], M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled, 2012, Random House (Rider), page 105,\nThe feeling of love is the emotion that accompanies the experience of cathecting. Cathecting, it will be remembered, is the process by which an object becomes important to us. Once cathected, the object, commonly referred to as a 'love object,' is invested with our energy as if it were part of ourselves, and this relationship between the us and the invested object is called a cathexis."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Howard Kamler, Identification and Character, SUNY Press, page 56",
          "text": "Narcissism theorists talk about the work of the narcissism period being a \"cathecting of the self.\" In fact, they should be talking about a \"cathecting of the rudimentary self.\" Since all that gets cathected here are merely individually emerging ego self representations and not ego self structure—the latter amounting to an internally integrated network of agency dispositions—it really makes no sense to talk about cathecting a self per se.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Carroll E. Izard, Human Emotions, page 193",
          "text": "Apparently it is possible for an individual to cathect any person, object, idea, or image. Of considerable importance to a possible analogy between cathexis and the emotion of interest, is Freud's notion that an individual can cathect thought or thinking as well as attention and perception.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "psychology",
          "psychology"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, psychology) To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "psychology",
        "sciences"
      ]
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  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/kəˈθɛkt/"
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɛkt"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
      "word": "keskittyä tunteellisesti"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
      "word": "emotional besetzen"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cathect"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-06-06 using wiktextract (372f256 and 664a3bc). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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