fixation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or process of fixing or fixating.
• noun An obsessive preoccupation.
• noun Psychology A strong attachment to a person or thing, manifested in an immature or pathological way.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Attachment: adhesion: as, various parasites have organs for fixation.
• noun In psychological and physiological optics, the act or process of directing the eyes upon some object, and of maintaining this direction during the time required for observation; the bringing of a retinal image into and holding it upon the area of direct vision.
• noun The act of fixing.
• noun The state of being fixed; a fixed, firm, or stable condition; stability; firmness; steadiness.
• noun Fixed or certain position or location.
• noun Specifically The act or process by which a fluid or a gas becomes or is rendered firm or stable in consistency, and evaporation or volatilization prevented, or by which colors are rendered permanent or lasting; specifically, in chem., that process by which a gaseous body becomes fixed or solid on uniting with a solid body.
• noun Firmness or stableness of consistency; that firm state of a body in which it resists evaporation or volatilization by heat: as, the fixation of gold or other metals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of fixing, or the state of being fixed.
• noun The act of uniting chemically with a solid substance or in a solid form; reduction to a non-volatile condition; -- said of gaseous elements.
• noun The act or process of ceasing to be fluid and becoming firm.
• noun A state of resistance to evaporation or volatilization by heat; -- said of metals.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The act of fixing, or the state of being fixed or fixated.
• noun The act of uniting chemically with a solid substance or in a solid form; reduction to a non-volatile condition; -- said of gaseous elements.
• noun The act or process of ceasing to be fluid and becoming firm.
• noun In metals, a state of resistance to evaporation or volatilization by heat.
• noun A state of mind involving obsession with a particular person, idea, or thing.
• noun law Recording a creative work in a medium of expression for more than a transitory duration, thereby satisfying the "fixation" requirement for the purposes of copyright law.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely
• noun an unhealthy and compulsive preoccupation with something or someone
• noun the activity of fastening something firmly in position
• noun (histology) the preservation and hardening of a tissue sample to retain as nearly as possible the same relations they had in the living body