as in attracts
to hold one's attention to an extreme degree
The TV show obsessed me so much that I was up all night watching.
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Recent Examples of obsesses
Much of Muscle Man really is plotless—Harold steals a student’s backpack, goes to a department meeting, then fits in a workout—but Casey is a common thread, as Harold often obsesses about securing his approval.
—
Jeremy Gordon, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2025
Page Six of the New York Post predictably leaps on every Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift nugget, obsesses on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, and likes reminding readers whenever Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles are holding hands in a Brooklyn bar.
—Peter Bart, Deadline, 11 Sep. 2025
The band’s manager obsesses over social-media impressions.
—Kyle Chayka, New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2025
Jeremy Gordon, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2025
Page Six of the New York Post predictably leaps on every Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift nugget, obsesses on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, and likes reminding readers whenever Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles are holding hands in a Brooklyn bar.
—Peter Bart, Deadline, 11 Sep. 2025
The band’s manager obsesses over social-media impressions.
—Kyle Chayka, New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for obsesses
Verb
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The property, which features lush greenery and old-growth trees set among babbling brooks and water features, is open to the public, and the gardens have served as a popular spot for weddings over the decades in addition to an annual Mother’s Day tea that Weston said attracts hundreds each year.—
Matthew Adams,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
29 Sep. 2025
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Any kind of hard material attracts fauna in water, says Andrey Vedenin, a marine biologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany, who was not involved in the Mallows Bay study but co-authored a separate new paper that detailed wildlife thriving on war detritus in the Baltic Sea.—
Andrea Tamayo,
Scientific American,
25 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Is there one that particularly fascinates you?—
Cressida Leyshon,
New Yorker,
10 Aug. 2025
Verb
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At the very least, the prospect of doing more with younger Ed and Lorraine intrigues the performers.—
EW.com,
EW.com,
2 Sep. 2025
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There’s something about childhood and adolescence — and the wounds that form during those years, which in some way stay with us for life — that really intrigues me.—
Anna Marie de la Fuente,
Variety,
2 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Both men are doing stuff that keeps them occupied, interests them on some level and pays the bills, but doesn’t consume their every waking thought.—
Nick Miller,
New York Times,
2 Oct. 2025
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Don’t be pushy, show your gratitude, be open-minded, smile, greet people by their first name, learn what interests them and, most of all, have a sense of humor.—
Rolling Stone Culture Council,
Rolling Stone,
23 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Obsesses.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/obsesses. Accessed 6 Oct. 2025.
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