fixated; fixating
1
: to focus or concentrate one's gaze or attention intently or obsessively
… he was fixating on the airport in the distance, trying to find the assigned runway.—
Richard L. Collins
Richard L. Collins… the tourist mind tended to fixate on ice cream cones …—T. Coraghessan Boyle
T. Coraghessan Boyle2
: to undergo arrestment at a stage of development
1
: to make fixed, stationary, or unchanging
2
: to focus one's gaze on
3
: to direct (the libido) toward an infantile form of gratification
Examples of fixate in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The wave of record-breaking public offerings for AI megacompanies that has Wall Street fixated this week is also buoying energy startups that see a chance to win back investors’ favor after the disappointing climate tech boom of the early 2020s.
—Tim McDonnell, semafor.com, 11 June 2026
Though the bot sometimes suggested calling helplines, the lawsuit alleges that GPT-4o mostly allowed Alice space to fixate on her dark thoughts, in one instance even deriding suicide hotlines after Alice rejected the idea of calling one.
—Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism, 11 June 2026
People often fixate on one sentence and miss everything else, Mahlum says.
—Angela Haupt, Time, 11 June 2026
As the media fixates on the digital natives known as Gen Z and Gen Alpha — often dismissing them as antisocial and entitled members of society — Saturday’s celebration showed that younger generations might actually have it all under control.
—Andrea Flores, Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for fixate
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Tim McDonnell, semafor.com, 11 June 2026
Though the bot sometimes suggested calling helplines, the lawsuit alleges that GPT-4o mostly allowed Alice space to fixate on her dark thoughts, in one instance even deriding suicide hotlines after Alice rejected the idea of calling one.
—Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism, 11 June 2026
People often fixate on one sentence and miss everything else, Mahlum says.
—Angela Haupt, Time, 11 June 2026
As the media fixates on the digital natives known as Gen Z and Gen Alpha — often dismissing them as antisocial and entitled members of society — Saturday’s celebration showed that younger generations might actually have it all under control.
—Andrea Flores, Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for fixate
Cite this Entry
“Fixate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fixate. Accessed 17 Jun. 2026.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
fixate
verb
fix·ate
ˈfik-ˌsāt 
fixated; fixating
1
: to focus one's gaze on
2
: to direct (the libido) toward an infantile form of gratification
1
: to focus or concentrate one's gaze or attention
an infant with normal vision … will fixate on a light held before him—The Journal of the American Medical Association
The Journal of the American Medical Association2
: to undergo arrestment at a stage of development
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