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Obsess vs Engross - What's the difference?

obsess | engross |

In transitive terms the difference between obsess and engross

is that obsess is to dominate the thoughts of someone while engross is to completely engage the attention of.

As verbs the difference between obsess and engross

is that obsess is to be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion while engross is (finalize) To write (a document) in large, aesthetic, and legible lettering; to make a finalized copy of.

obsess

English

Verb

(es)
  • To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Magician’s brain , passage=The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason. The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.}}
  • (label) To dominate the thoughts of someone.
  • To think or talk obsessively about.
  • engross

    English

    Verb

    (es)
  • (senseid) To write (a document) in large, aesthetic, and legible lettering; to make a finalized copy of.
  • * Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials
  • * De Quincey
  • laws that may be engrossed on a finger nail
  • (transitive, business, obsolete) To buy up wholesale, especially to buy the whole supply of (a commodity etc.).
  • To monopolize; to concentrate (something) in the single possession of someone, especially unfairly.
  • * 1644 , (John Milton), Aeropagitica :
  • After which time the Popes of Rome, engrossing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands, extended their dominion over mens eyes, as they had before over their judgements, burning and prohibiting to be read, what they fancied not
  • * 2007 , John Burrow, A History of Histories , Penguin 2009, pp. 125-6:
  • Octavian then engrosses for himself proconsular powers for ten years in all the provinces where more than one legion was stationed, giving him effective control of the army.
  • To completely engage the attention of.
  • She seems to be''' completely '''engrossed in that book.
  • (obsolete) To thicken; to condense.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.4:
  • As, when a foggy mist hath overcast / The face of heven, and the cleare ayre engroste , / The world in darkenes dwels
  • To make gross, thick, or large; to thicken; to increase in bulk or quantity.
  • * Spenser
  • waves engrossed with mud
  • * Shakespeare
  • not sleeping, to engross his idle body
  • (obsolete) To amass.
  • * Shakespeare
  • to engross up glorious deeds on my behalf

    Synonyms

    * (to buy up the whole supply of) corner the market

    Coordinate terms

    * (to write out in large characters) longhand

    References

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