verb · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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/kəˈθɛkt/
rhymes with -ɛkt
1
verb
Meaning 1
To focus one's emotional energies on someone or something.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: transitive
Topics: human-sciences, psychology, sciences
Examples
1978 [Simon & Schuster], M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled, 2012, Random House (Rider), page 105, The feeling of love is the emotion that accompanies the experience of cathecting. Cathecting, it will be remembered, is the process by which an object becomes important to us. Once cathected, the object, commonly referred to as a 'love object,' is invested with our energy as if it were part of ourselves, and this relationship between the us and the invested object is called a cathexis.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
verb
Meaning 2
inject with libidinal energy
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: stimulate, arouse, brace, energize, energise, perk up
History
Etymology
Back-formation from cathexis and cathectic. A loan creation coined by British psychoanalyst James Strachey translating Freud’s German besetzen.
Across languages
Translations
2 source translations are retained for this English entry.
Finnish:
keskittyä tunteellisesti
— to focus one's emotional energies on
German:
emotional besetzen
— to focus one's emotional energies on
