as in obsessions
something about which one is constantly thinking or concerned
the future entomologist's preoccupation with insects from a very early age
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Recent Examples of preoccupations
Protein preoccupations The protein obsession continued throughout 2025, spilling far beyond shakes and bars into everyday foods and drinks.
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Deirdre Bardolf, FOXNews.com, 2 Jan. 2026
As with much of Austen’s comedy, the description of the health preoccupations of these two fathers is inseparable from her moral vision.
—Chris Cohen, Literary Hub, 11 Dec. 2025
Only in some of its themes and preoccupations, and the fact that both have taken me years to write.
—Deborah Treisman, New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2025
Still, Patino described a canyon between the preoccupations and paths of people like Bezos and Griffin and the people in attendance like himself.
—Max Klaver, Miami Herald, 8 Nov. 2025
The lines between life and art, truth and fiction, get mighty blurry in Trier’s emotionally expansive, extremely wry film, though the family drama itself is just a spine on which to hang any number of other fixations and preoccupations.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 7 Nov. 2025
But these names, which signal both over-the-top satire and dramatization of extreme politics, are some of the small nods and Easter Eggs that Anderson includes in his script for One Battle After Another, which distill the preoccupations of novelist Thomas Pynchon.
—Kevin Dolak, HollywoodReporter, 6 Oct. 2025
In a cheeky aside directed at Sony Pictures Classics co-head Micheal Barker who was at the dinner, Quinn recalled how one of his preoccupations at Samuel Goldwyn had been figuring out what titles their rivals were getting access to.
—Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 30 Sep. 2025
Trier’s preoccupations with a healthy set are also a testament to his directing philosophy.
—Rafa Sales Ross, Variety, 23 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for preoccupations
obsessions
Noun
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Shop all of our latest obsessions in one place!—
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In Humphrey Cobb’s 1935 novel about a trio of French soldiers condemned to death at random by their cowardly superiors, Kubrick found a perfect vessel for his obsessions.—
Cite this Entry
“Preoccupations.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/preoccupations. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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