fetish

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Something which is believed to possess, contain, or cause spiritual or magical powers; an amulet or a talisman.

   “The idols and fetishes were being dressed up and whitewashed, receiving sacrifices.”

2. (countable, dated, uncountable)A figure representing the spirit of a deity, human, or animal; an idol or voodoo doll.

   “This was the trunk of a large wooden doll […] now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. […] The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg”

3. (countable, uncountable)Sexual fixation to or arousal at something abnormally sexual or nonsexual, such as an object or a nonsexual part of the body.

   “I know a guy who has a foot fetish.”

   “a fetish for leather”

   “The first time, I was confused. His needs were obscure to me, and what I could perceive of them seemed to me ridiculous, laughable, like a fetish for lace-up shoes.”

4. (countable, uncountable)An irrational or abnormal preoccupation or fixation on some object or activity; an obsession.

   “He has been talking about the same topic for hours on end, I suspect he may have a fetish”

   “However, I am not prone to sensitiveness, and the following of a sense of duty, wherever it may lead, has always been a kind of fetich with me throughout my life; which may account for the honors bestowed upon me by three republics and the decorations and friendships of an old and powerful emperor and several lesser kings, in whose service my sword has been red many a time.”

   “We have a feeling that it must be "honest" work, because it is hard and disagreeable, and we have made a sort of fetish of manual work.”

   “The most amusing was the Wastebasket Era, which combined the stacking fetish with a container fixation.”

   “A leading candidate for this role in the case of women has been the soap fetish.[…]Given this general cultural background the reasons for the rise of the soap fetish are not hard to find.[…]Guilt, as one of the propellers of the soap fetish, does not confine its thrust to the desire to wash dirty hands or erase the blots from the copybook.”

5. (countable, uncountable)A recurrent theme of a specific thing.