fixation

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n fixation (histology) the preservation and hardening of a tissue sample to retain as nearly as possible the same relations they had in the living body
    • n fixation the activity of fastening something firmly in position
    • n fixation an unhealthy and compulsive preoccupation with something or someone
    • n fixation an abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • Fixation A state of resistance to evaporation or volatilization by heat; -- said of metals.
    • Fixation The act of fixing, or the state of being fixed. "An unalterable fixation of resolution.""To light, created in the first day, God gave no proper place or fixation .""Marked stiffness or absolute fixation of a joint.""A fixation and confinement of thought to a few objects."
    • Fixation The act of uniting chemically with a solid substance or in a solid form; reduction to a non-volatile condition; -- said of gaseous elements.
    • Fixation The act or process of ceasing to be fluid and becoming firm.
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n fixation The act of fixing.
    • n fixation The state of being fixed; a fixed, firm, or stable condition; stability; firmness; steadiness.
    • n fixation Fixed or certain position or location.
    • n fixation 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.
    • n fixation 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.
    • n fixation Attachment: adhesion: as, various parasites have organs for fixation.
    • n fixation 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.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • ns Fixation act of fixing, or state of being fixed: steadiness, firmness: state in which a body does not evaporate
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Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Cf. F. fixation,
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
L., fixus, figĕre, to fix, prob. through O. Fr. fix, or Low L. fixāre.

Usage

In literature:

Fixation of the gaze has been the most successful, but the ticking of a watch has been used.
"Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine" by George M. Gould
The employment of wireless telegraphy in the fixation of a fundamental meridian in Adelie Land.
"The Home of the Blizzard" by Douglas Mawson
This will be a third factor in the fixation of this class of bachelor women.
"What is Coming?" by H. G. Wells
These interjections are merely conventional fixations of the natural sounds.
"Language" by Edward Sapir
We meet all these types of homosexual fixations in daily life.
"Taboo and Genetics" by Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
The narrowness of American political issues is a fixation upon instruments.
"A Preface to Politics" by Walter Lippmann
An example is father fixation or mother fixation.
"The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book" by Various
A special fixation does not take place.
"The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics" by Franklin Beech
The question which most interested me was the best method of fixation.
"Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900" by George Henry Makins
The same principles are involved in any other object which is used as a means of fixation or of tiring the eyes.
"A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis" by Melvin Powers
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In news:

During 2011, or at least the first week of it, I'll be embracing youth attitudes and ideas, including their Luciferian fixation on technological mumbo jumbo.
syracuse.com
Narcissistic individuals fixate on the reactions of others in order to...
usatoday.com
Unhealthy Fixation on Jobs's Illness.
nytimes.com
Transfacet Pedicular Fixation System Launched.
surgicalproductsmag.com
Spineology to Unveil New Thresholdâ„¢ Minimally Invasive Pedicular Fixation System at NASS.
mdtmag.com
For a nation fixated on the responsible use of resources, we're surprisingly wasteful with energy when it comes to putting food on the table.
usatoday.com
From tartans to tweeds and kilts to clans -- are among this fall's favored fixations.
post-gazette.com
TAYLOR SWIFT's Kennedy fixation continues.
philly.com
Conservative GOP Kansas Rep Pompeo says Obama administration is 'fixated' on raising taxes.
kwch.com
(MoneyWatch) The daily financial news is fixated on the "fiscal cliff".
cbsnews.com
Director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins, center) is fixated on Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson, left), though married to Alma (Helen Mirren).
venturacountystar.com
Sports Business Journal reported Monday that ESPN president John Skipper recently told producers to back off on a network-wide fixation with Tebow that for months has drawn criticism both inside.
newsday.com
The Broadway producer Jeffrey Richards has, if not a fixation for, at least a preoccupation with Gore Vidal's 1960 political comedy, The Best Man (Schoenfeld Theatre), which he has now revived for the second time in a dozen years.
villagevoice.com
The aim would be to make the whole idea more palatable to the public and slowly wean festival-goers away from their bottled-water fixation.
record-eagle.com
Fixated on Kapuscinski's flaws, a new biography misses the point.
cjr.org
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In science:

The cost of inbreeding: Fixation of deleterious genes in Arabidopsis.
A time-dependent Poisson random field model for polymorphism within and between two related biological species
Sidoravicius, Stretched Exponential Fixation in Stochastic Ising Models at Zero Temperature, Commun.
Approximate Lifshitz law for the zero-temperature stochastic Ising model in any dimension
Figure 6: Fixation time as a function of r obtained using exact iteration (•) and analytical result (×) given by (53).
Nonlinear deterministic equations in biological evolution
It appears that Einstein's long vacillating between general covariance and the correspondence principle is a symptom of his fixation on the older 1912 paradigm of the static gravitational fields.
Genesis of general relativity - Discovery of general relativity
The result may not be good enough for excellent and stable eye tracking due to noise that contaminate gaze data acquired and detection of fixation may help to deal with this.
Eye-GUIDE (Eye-Gaze User Interface Design) Messaging for Physically-Impaired People
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