anal-retentive
adjective
anal-re·ten·tive
ˈā-nᵊl-ri-ˈten-tiv 
variants
or anal retentive
psychoanalytic theory
: exhibiting or typifying personality traits (such as frugality and obstinacy) held to be psychological consequences of toilet training
Overextending psychic energy during the process of toilet training by holding back can result in fixating at the anal stage, creating an anal retentive personality as an adult. The anal retentive personality is characterized by the tendency to cope with conflicts later in life by demonstrating an extreme sense of cleanliness and orderliness, such as dusting furniture or waxing the car when troubled.—
Bernardo J. Carducci
—often used in nontechnical contexts to describe someone as extremely or excessively neat, careful, or preciseBernardo J. Carducci… is his father's clone—intense, focused, fuddy-duddy, severely anal-retentive, or as Archie puts it, "a neat freak."—Curry Kirkpatrick
Curry Kirkpatrick
anal retentive
noun
or anal-retentive
plural anal retentives or anal-retentives
Anal-retentives hoping to use PCs to organize their lives …
—The Washington Post
The Washington Post
anal retentiveness
noun
or anal-retentiveness
… maybe it's my anal retentiveness, my futile attempts to bring order to a chaotic world. Who knows? All I know is there's no more beautiful sight than firewood stacked in long, perfect rows.
—Craig Wilson
Craig Wilson
Examples of anal-retentive in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
But there would be no grease-drinking, Judas-playing Sandy without his anal-retentive best friend, Reuben Feffer.
—Sean Malin, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024
Conventional management practices suppress everything that isn’t vine by mowing, tilling, and spraying herbicide with an intensity that ranges from anal-retentive to paranoid.
—Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 24 July 2024
One might be forgiven for also thinking that the identification is not so much between the audience and the killer as between Fincher, who is known as something of a filmmaking fusspot, and his anal-retentive central character.
—Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 25 Oct. 2023
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Sean Malin, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024
Conventional management practices suppress everything that isn’t vine by mowing, tilling, and spraying herbicide with an intensity that ranges from anal-retentive to paranoid.
—Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 24 July 2024
One might be forgiven for also thinking that the identification is not so much between the audience and the killer as between Fincher, who is known as something of a filmmaking fusspot, and his anal-retentive central character.
—Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 25 Oct. 2023
Dictionary Entries Near anal-retentive
Cite this Entry
“Anal-retentive.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anal-retentive. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
anal-retentive
1 of 2 adjective
anal-re·ten·tive
variants
or anal retentive
: characterized by personality traits (as frugality and obstinacy) held to be psychological sequelae of toilet training : anal sense 2b
anal retentiveness
noun
or anal-retentiveness
anal retentive
2 of 2 noun
variants
or anal-retentive
: an anal-retentive individual
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