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Glite Dictionary
to fetishize

to fetishize

5 8.8
To treat something as if it has special power or importance
  • verb
  • /ˈfɛtɪʃˌaɪz/
translation icon : fetichizar
  • Many fans tend to fetishize vintage cars, believing they hold a special charm and significance.
  • fetishizes idealized attractive body
  • fetishized notion

Kind of the way that people fetishize money, I fetishized being smart.

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Examples

  • Let's talk about this whole fetishizing of smart and genius, right?

  • The paper warns against fetishizing meaning-making to the neglect of these material and structural factors.

    Academic text (2008)

  • Kind of the way that people fetishize money, I fetishized being smart.

    Tom Bilyeu

  • Fetishize the human brain, fetishize human powers, fetishize our sociabilities.

    Tom Bilyeu

  • And I think we have, I think we have fetishized manufacturing.

    Harvard University

  • And it seems to me that this is all tied into mental health, but also the way social media fetishizes mental health.

  • Growing up in Connecticut, I fetishized New York City.

    Moby Doc (2021)

  • So, for example, we did the topic of society fetishizing pregnancy.

    The Pivot Podcast

  • Products were fetishized as "fabulous prizes" whose possession is the ultimate reward for participation.

    Academic text (1991)

  • You do not want to be fetishized, so you also shouldn't be fetishizing anyone else.

    Blog text (15)

Synonyms

to worship
vsto fetishize
106 3.4

To admire someone very much, often without thinking about their faults

leans more toward irrational devotion and attributing supernatural importance
to idolize
vsto fetishize
  • US
42 4.9

Admire someone very much, often ignoring their faults

treats things as having exaggerated mystical importance rather than mere praise
to hero-worship
vsto fetishize
1 6.5

Admire someone so much that you think they are perfect

applies to things too, focusing on strange power or fetishistic value
to idolatrize
vsto fetishize
  • US
9.9

To admire someone too much and ignore their faults

gives objects special power or irrational worth rather than sacred status

Antonyms

to disregard
119 3.9

Ignore something or someone on purpose

How Idolized

to worship
106 3.4
to fetishize
5 8.8
to admire
743 1.6
to appreciate
902 3.4

Surface Forms

fetishize infinitive
fetishized past
fetishized past participle
fetishizing present participle
fetishizes third person singular

Morphology

fetishize = fetish (transparent) = fetish + ize

Meaning is directly formed by adding the productive verb-forming suffix '-ize' to 'fetish' to mean 'to make into or treat as a fetish'.

Etymology

Fetishize comes from the word fetish, which itself comes from Portuguese feitiço meaning 'charm' or 'magic'. So, to fetishize something is to treat it as if it has special power or importance.