Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Pathological obsession with one idea or subject.
- noun Intent concentration on or exaggerated enthusiasm for a single subject or idea.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Insanity in which there is a more or less complete limitation of the perverted mental action to a particular field, as a specific delusion, or an impulse to do some particular thing. The other mental functions may show some signs of degeneration.
- noun In popular use, an unreasonable zeal for or interest in some one thing; a craze.
- noun Synonyms Lunacy, Derangement, etc. See
insanity .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Derangement of the mind in regard of a single subject only; also, such a concentration of interest upon one particular subject or train of ideas to show mental derangement.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Excessive interest orconcentration on asingular object orsubject . - noun A
pathological obsession with oneperson ,thing oridea .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a mania restricted to one thing or idea
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"It is the sort of malady which we call monomania," said the doctor.
The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas p��re 1836
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“He never could be cured, the doctors said, for he had what they called monomania, — was always talking about his wife and darter that somebody had stole away years ago, and plannin 'revenge on that somebody.
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"He never could be cured, the doctors said, for he had what they called monomania, -- was always talking about his wife and darter that somebody had stole away years ago, and plannin 'revenge on that somebody.
Mrs. Skagg's Husbands and Other Stories Bret Harte 1869
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The verdict of literary criticism is that of the medical art -- he was insane; and to what extent this mania acted as a monomania, that is, how far he was himself deceived, the world can never know.
English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction Henry Coppee
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And his monomania was the ruin of this woman who had taken from him in the very moment of consummation all that he had ever really loved in the world -- a thin, awkward, freckled, red-haired country girl, in whom, for the first and only time in all his life, he saw the vague and phantom promise of that trinity which he had never known -- a wife, a child, and a home.
The Dark Star William Dodge Stevens 1899
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Coincidently, Female Science Professor posted today about her disagreement with a colleague who wanted his female grad students to exhibit more "monomania" towards science.
Archive 2008-03-01 Peggy 2008
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Coincidently, Female Science Professor posted today about her disagreement with a colleague who wanted his female grad students to exhibit more "monomania" towards science.
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, Sexism and Stereotypes Peggy 2008
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This is not a particularly original argument, although in Mr. Freeman's case it becomes a kind of monomania, in which Israel is always the warmonger, always slapping away Arab hands extended in peace.
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Not because of Wright's "monomania" (to use another canard from Stanley's article), but because liberals and Democrats are too ashamed of their own slightly crazed grandpas-in-the-attic to understand how important it is to defend them (needless to say, GOPers understand very well).
Hullabaloo 2008
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Wilma, temperamental and overworked, had let it become a kind of monomania with her.
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