obese

adjective

ō-ˈbēs 

: having excessive body fat

Synonyms of obese

• plump
• fat
• overweight
• round

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

Even so, the results offer new insight into the biological processes that may help explain how fatty liver disease can progress to liver cancer, a condition that can also affect people who are not morbidly obese. —Deirdre Bardolf, FOXNews.com, 7 Jan. 2026

University of Oxford researchers assessed a range of clinical trials as well as Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane and Web of Science databases, with a focus on what happened after cessation of treatment regarding adults who were overweight or obese. —New Atlas, 7 Jan. 2026

Garg said many midlife women may fall into this group, which also includes those over 50, plus people who are immunocompromised, classified as obese or who have disorders that impact the kidney, liver, blood or metabolism. —Helen Carefoot, Flow Space, 6 Jan. 2026

More than one billion people are obese, according to the World Health Organization. —Royson Valliyil, ABC News, 18 Dec. 2025

Word History

Etymology

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").

First Known Use

1651, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for obese

• apiece
• aris
• assise
• caprice
• cerise
• decease
• decrease
• eyepiece
• facepiece
• handpiece
• headpiece
• increase

Kids Definition

obese

adjective

ō-ˈbēs 

: very fat

obesity

ō-ˈbē-sət-ē

noun

Medical Definition

obese

adjective

ō-ˈbēs 

: having excessive body fat : affected by obesity