ANAL-RETENTIVE Synonyms: 111 Similar and Opposite Words

anal-retentive

adjective

Definition of anal-retentive

as in stubborn

extremely or overly neat, careful, or precise My anal-retentive brother keeps records of everything that happens in his life.

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of anal-retentive But there would be no grease-drinking, Judas-playing Sandy without his anal-retentive best friend, Reuben Feffer. — Sean Malin, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024 Conventional management practices suppress everything that isn’t vine by mowing, tilling, and spraying herbicide with an intensity that ranges from anal-retentive to paranoid. — Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 24 July 2024 One might be forgiven for also thinking that the identification is not so much between the audience and the killer as between Fincher, who is known as something of a filmmaking fusspot, and his anal-retentive central character. — Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 25 Oct. 2023

Recent Examples of Synonyms for anal-retentive

Adjective

The Federal Reserve is also hiking rates again to rein in stubborn inflation.

— Jason Ma, Fortune, 17 Oct. 2026
Pair that with five years of stubborn inflation, and workers are losing even more ground.

— Alicia Wallace, CNN Money, 16 Oct. 2026

Definition of stubborn

Adjective

Generating scholarly tomes at a rate of more than one a year involves obsessive amounts of research.

— Sean Timberlake, Sacbee.com, 7 Oct. 2026
Yet tailoring is also one of fashion’s great luxuries — an intimate, almost obsessive process of shaping cloth around the body.

— Tyler Matthew Oyer, Los Angeles Times, 7 Oct. 2026

Definition of obsessive

Adjective

Fineman is set to play Parker Quinn, a sports reporter for a top publication who’s known as a dogged reporter with a passion for her beat.

— Katie Kilkenny, HollywoodReporter, 20 July 2026
One of the hallmarks of the series is its dogged attention to detail, an aspect of storyboarding infinitely complicated by the non-linear nature of the episodes and the vast number of years Lestat’s life as a vampire spans.

— CT Jones, Rolling Stone, 7 July 2026

Definition of dogged

Adjective

Anthropic wants Congress to set strict limits on when federal authorities can stop advanced AI models from reaching users.

— Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 17 Oct. 2026
France, unlike the United States, places strict limits on campaign spending, but money still shapes the broader political ecosystem.

— Nicholas Bequelin, Time, 16 Oct. 2026

Definition of strict

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“Anal-retentive.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/anal-retentive. Accessed 21 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of anal-retentive

adjective

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