Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun In psychoanalysis, an unconscious sexual desire by a child, especially a male child, directed to the parent of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by hostility to the parent of the same sex.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun psychoanalysis In
Freudian theory, thecomplex ofemotions aroused in achild by anunconscious sexual desire for theparent of the opposite sex.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a complex of males; desire to possess the mother sexually and to exclude the father; said to be a source of personality disorders if unresolved
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Named after Oedipus in Greek Mythology, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
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