as in stubborn
extremely or overly neat, careful, or precise
My anal-retentive brother keeps records of everything that happens in his life.
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Examples of anal-retentive in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
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.
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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
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
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'anal-retentive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Anal-retentive.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/anal-retentive. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.
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