anal personality
1
9.5
- noun
- /ˈeɪnəl pərˈsɒnəlɪti/
- Specialized
:
personalidad anal
- From the looks of things, no one in this house has an anal personality that will be disturbed by this rearrangement.
Examples
-
The therapist explained how a young child's experiences can shape an anal personality later in life.
-
One of them must have an anal personality.
Fiction book (1993) -
People with an anal personality often struggle to compromise due to their stubbornness and need for order.
-
Her anal personality made her meticulous about organizing every detail of the event.
Synonyms
A person who wants things to be perfect and very neat
Being so focused on small details that you miss the main point
How Orderly
- Specialized
- Specialized
1
9.5
3
3.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound links 'anal' (here a technical/colloquial adjective referring to anal-stage traits or being overly fussy) with 'personality', so a learner who knows the specific psychoanalytic or colloquial sense of 'anal' could infer a personality marked by excessive orderliness. However, that specialized sense of 'anal' is not guaranteed for an average B1 learner (who may only know the anatomical sense), so the meaning is only partially predictable and depends on cultural/technical knowledge.
Etymology
Anal personality comes from an old idea about childhood 'toilet training': the anal part refers to that early toilet stage and the personality part shows the adult's habits. If a child had very strict toilet training, people thought they could grow up focused on control and order. So anal personality means someone who is 'very orderly, neat, and stubborn'.