obese

adjective

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\ ō-ˈbēs

Definition of obese

: having excessive body fat

Synonyms & Antonyms Example Sentences Learn More about obese

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Synonyms & Antonyms for obese

Synonyms

Antonyms

Examples of obese in a Sentence

providing medical treatment for obese patients the basset hound was so obese that its stomach touched the floor

Recent Examples on the Web Given current trends, nearly 1 in 2 American adults will be obese by 2030, according to a 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. — Arielle Mitropoulos, ABC News, 4 June 2021 The Times’ Rosanna Xia reports on alarming new research finding that granddaughters of women exposed to DDT are more likely to be obese and start menstruating before age 11, putting them at greater risk of breast cancer, diabetes and other diseases. — Los Angeles Times, 15 Apr. 2021 For patients in higher risk categories -- those who were 65 years or older or obese -- 4% who got the treatment were hospitalized. — Jen Christensen, CNN, 28 Oct. 2020 Then again, as Gupta noted, the president is 74 years old, clinically obese and just climbed a flight of stairs. — David Bauder, Star Tribune, 8 Oct. 2020 At 244 pounds, Trump is medically obese with a body mass index above 30, according to a June report by White House physician Sean Conley. — Author: Toluse Olorunnipa, Michael Kranish, Anchorage Daily News, 25 Oct. 2020 And in San Francisco, the shot is available to anyone who is HIV-positive or is considered obese. — Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, 24 Mar. 2021 The state’s threshold is those considered severely obese with body mass indexes greater than or equal to 40. — Paul Sisson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Mar. 2021 Then the embarrassing bit comes back, the part everyone considers so unforgivably crass, how our most significant contribution to global cuisine made a bunch of people sick, lumberingly obese and prematurely dead. — Josh Condon, Robb Report, 6 Mar. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'obese.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for obese

borrowed from Latin obēsus "fat, stout," past participle of *obedere, perhaps meaning originally "to gnaw," from ob- "against" + edere "to eat" — more at ob-, eat entry 1

Note: Etymologically obēsus should mean "thin, emaciated," if the sense of the unattested verb *obedere was "to eat away, gnaw," as implied by its components. The Roman writer Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae 19.7.3) pointed this out and adduced a passage from the poet Laevius (who is known only from a handful of quotations from his works made by other authors), where the word apparently has the meaning "wasted." Presumably the word went reanalysis after the extinction of the verb. The grammarian Pompeius Festus construed the derivation phrasally as "made fat as if as a result of eating" ("pinguis quasi ob edendum factus").

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