"cathect" meaning in English

See cathect in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

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

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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "cathexis"
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      "expansion": "Back-formation from cathexis",
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      "args": {
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    {
      "args": {
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        "2": "de",
        "3": "besetzen"
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      "expansion": "German besetzen",
      "name": "der"
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  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from cathexis and cathectic. A loan creation coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey translating Freud’s German besetzen.",
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      "form": "cathected",
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      "form": "cathected",
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        {
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          "orig": "en:Psychology",
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      "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
      "id": "en-cathect-en-verb-Ge2K7NLG",
      "links": [
        [
          "psychology",
          "psychology"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, psychology) To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
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        "human-sciences",
        "psychology",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
          "word": "keskittyä tunteellisesti"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "note": "s’investir émotionnellement dans un unique sujet",
          "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
          "word": "emotional besetzen"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "ipa": "/kəˈθɛkt/"
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɛkt"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cathect"
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        "present"
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    {
      "form": "cathected",
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    {
      "form": "cathected",
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        "past"
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        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
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        {
          "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": "quote"
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      ],
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        "To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something."
      ],
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          "psychology",
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      "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": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "note": "s’investir émotionnellement dans un unique sujet",
      "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to focus one's emotional energies on",
      "word": "emotional besetzen"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cathect"
}

Download raw JSONL data for cathect meaning in English (3.7kB)

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  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "verb",
  "title": "cathect",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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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