fetish
n. countablen. an object that someone believes has special or magical powers. It can also describe an unusually strong interest in something or a specific sexual attraction.
n. an object believed to have supernatural powers or to be inhabited by a spirit; in modern psychological contexts, a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, or part of the body.
He has a strange fetish for vintage leather boots.
The museum displayed a collection of wooden fetishes used by ancient tribes to protect their homes from bad luck.
The anthropologist argued that the community's reverence for the ancient stone was not mere superstition but a complex fetish that anchored their entire social hierarchy.
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁k-yé-ti Proto-Italic *θakjō Proto-Italic *fakjō Latin faciō Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Italic *-tos Latin -tus Latin factus Latin -īcius Latin factīcius Portuguese feitiçobor. French fétichebor. English fetish Borrowed from French fétiche, from Portuguese feitiço, from Latin factīcius (“artificial”). Doublet of factitious.
Commonly used with the preposition 'for' when describing a psychological or sexual interest.