Borrowed from French fétiche, from Portuguese feitiço, free fetishtube from Latin factīcius ("artificial"). Doublet of factitious.

Pronunciation[edit]

(UK, US) enPR: fĕtʹĭsh, fēʹtĭsh, IPA(key): /ˈfɛt.ɪʃ/, /ˈfiː.tɪʃ/Audio (US)(file)

Audio (AU)(file)

- Rhymes: -ɛtɪʃ, -iːtɪʃ
Noun[edit]

fetish (plural fetishes)

1. Something which is believed to own, contain, or cause spiritual or magical powers; an amulet or a talisman. [from the early 17th c.] 1958, Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King:The idols and fetishes have been being dressed up and whitewashed, receiving sacrifices.

2. Sexual attraction to or arousal at something abnormally sexual or nonsexual, corresponding to an object or a nonsexual part of the body. [from the early 19th c.] Synonym: paraphilia I do know a guy who has a foot fetish.

a fetish for leather

1985, Margaret Atwood, "Soul Scrolls", in the Handmaid’s Tale, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, web page 163:The first time, I used to be confused. His wants have been obscure to me, and what I may perceive of them appeared to me ridiculous, laughable, like a fetish for lace-up sneakers.

3. An irrational or abnormal preoccupation or fixation on some object or activity; an obsession. [from the 19th c.] a fetish for deficit reduction

1912 February-July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Under the Moons of Mars", within the All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as "On the Arizona Hills", in A Princess of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1917 October, →OCLC, page 6:However, I'm not susceptible to sensitiveness, and the following of a sense of responsibility, wherever it may lead, has all the time been a sort of fetich with me all through my life; which may account for the honors bestowed upon me by three republics and the decorations and friendships of an old and powerful emperor and several lesser kings, in whose service my sword has been red many a time.

1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:We now have a feeling that it should be "trustworthy" work, because it is tough and disagreeable, and we've made a sort of fetish of handbook work.

2014 [1980], John Carroll, "The cleaning soap fetish", in Sceptical Sociology, web page 124:A number one candidate for this function within the case of women has been the cleaning soap fetish. […] Given this basic cultural background the reasons for the rise of the cleaning soap fetish usually are not exhausting to search out. […] Guilt, as one of many propellers of the soap fetish, doesn't confine its thrust to the want to wash soiled fingers or erase the blots from the copybook.