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Addiction   /ədˈɪkʃən/   Listen
Addiction

noun
1.
Being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming (especially alcohol or narcotic drugs).  Synonyms: dependance, dependence, dependency, habituation.
2.
An abnormally strong craving.
3.
(Roman law) a formal award by a magistrate of a thing or person to another person (as the award of a debtor to his creditor); a surrender to a master.



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"Addiction" Quotes from Famous Books



... especial needs. He found this article in an institute whose black-faced headline in its advertisements was, "We Make You a $50,000 Executive"; and the article which he found, by payment of a special fee, was an old man who had been the manager of a big brokerage concern until his growing addiction to drink and later to drugs had rendered him undependable. But old Bronson certainly did know the fundamentals and intricacies of the kind of big business which is straight, and it was a delight to him to pour out his ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... the excuse for the poets flaunting an addiction to immorality lies in the obnoxiousness of the philistine element among their enemies. When mass feeling, mass-morality, becomes too oppressive, poets are wont to escape from its trammelling conventions at any cost. Rather than consent to lay their emotions under the rubber-stamp ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... of improvements, a new public garden, and so on. As yet roulette and rouge-et-noir are not permitted at Nice, the gambling at present carried on being apparently harmless. It is in reality even more insidious, being a stepping-stone to vice, a gradual initiation into desperate play. Just as addiction to absinthe is imbibed by potions quite innocuous in the beginning, so the new Casino at Nice schools the gamester from the outset, slowly and by infinitesimal degrees preparing him for ruin, dishonour ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... by habit a liking for unwholesome and unnatural food, has a healthy appetite for Nature's sun-cooked seeds and berries of all kinds. Now true refinement can only exist where the senses are uncorrupted by addiction to deleterious habits, and the nervous system by which the senses act will remain healthy only so long as it is built up by pure and natural foods; hence it is only while man is nourished by those foods desired by his unperverted appetite that he may be said to possess true refinement. Power ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... He was convicted of having forged a deed for the transfer of L5450 long annuities, in fraud of a certain Frances Young. Like Thurtell, Fountleroy defended himself, and battled with the prejudicial reports circulated against him—among the rest his addiction to gambling. 'I am accused,' he said, 'of being an habitual gambler, an accusation which, if true, might easily account for the diffusion of the property. I am, indeed, a member of two clubs, the Albion ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... would not retain much nutriment. Marshall was a social man, and at times convivial; and I should think it probable that, though he lived to a good old age, these complaints were, to some extent, engendered by the fried food they insist upon in Virginia, and addiction to Madeira wine instead of lighter French or German wines. He was one of the last of the old Madeira drinkers of this country, like Washington, and his only point of pride was that he had perhaps the best Madeira at Richmond. Above all other men who ever lived at Richmond, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... story of sin and damnation. Faust is represented as an eager student impelled by intellectual curiosity to the study of magic. From the point of view of the superstitious folk who created the legend this addiction to magic is itself sinful. But Faust is bad and reckless. By the aid of his black art he calls up a devil named (in the legend) Mephostophiles with whom he makes a contract of service. For twenty-four years Faust is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... of one master, plastic art. On his death-bed he may have felt, like Browning, in that sweetest of his poems, "other heights in other lives, God willing." But, for this earthly pilgrimage, he was contented to leave the ensample of a noble nature made perfect and completed in itself by addiction to one commanding impulse. We cannot cite another hero of the modern world who more fully and with greater intensity realised the main end of human life, which is self-effectuation, self-realisation, self-manifestation in one of the many lines of labour to which ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... as to the condition of the officers; he giving me caution as to myself, that there are those that are my enemies as well as his, and by name my Lord Brouncker who hath said some odd speeches against me. So that he advises me to stand on my guard; which I shall do, and unless my too-much addiction to pleasure undo me, will be acute enough ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... expert. But it was certainly some kind of drug. Judging by the avid way the other slaves were gulping it down, each one of them had been exposed to it before. Hanson cautiously made the pretense of swallowing his before he allowed it to slip through his fingers to mingle with the sand. Drug addiction was obviously a convenient way to make the slaves forget their aches and fears, to keep them everlasting anxious to please whatever was necessary to make sure the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... offspring One has to feel strong in a delicate position Our love and labour are constantly on trial Perhaps inspire him, if he would let her breathe Person in another world beyond this world of blood Practical for having an addiction to the palpable Screams of an uninjured lady Selfishness and icy inaccessibility to emotion She had a thirsting mind She had to be the hypocrite or else—leap Silence was doing the work of a scourge Smile she had in reserve for serviceable persons Snatch her from a possessor ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... acquainted, to a very considerable extent, at least, with those of my friend Van Haubitz, late lieutenant of artillery in the service of his majesty the King of Holland. He was the youngest of four sons, and having shown, at a very early age, a wild and intractable disposition, and precocious addiction to dissipation, his father pronounced him unsuited to business, and decided on placing him in the army. To this the Junker, (he claimed nobility, and displayed above his arms a species of coronet, bearing considerable resemblance to a fragment of chevaux-de-frise, which he might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... sold thyself to work iniquity.' But by a great effort I kept it down, and said, 'Does your lordship remember the end of the quotation?'" The Bishop, who enjoyed a laugh against himself, used to say that he had once been effectually scored off by one of his clergy whom he had rebuked for his addiction to fox-hunting. The Bishop urged that it had a worldly appearance. The clergyman replied that it was not a bit more worldly than a ball at Blenheim Palace at which the Bishop had been present. The Bishop explained that ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... of the Parsees of the present day are almost on a level with Europeans in education and acquirements; and in their adoption of our manners and customs, they stand alone among the various nations of our Oriental subjects—but their exclusive addiction to mercantile pursuits, and their pacific habits, (in both which points they are hardly exceeded by the Quakers of Europe,) make them objects of contempt to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world. My friends, we have work to do. There are the homeless, lost and roaming. There are the children who have nothing, no love, no normalcy. There are those who cannot free themselves of enslavement to whatever addiction—drugs, welfare, the demoralization that rules the slums. There is crime to be conquered, the rough crime of the streets. There are young women to be helped who are about to become mothers of children they can't care for and might not love. They need our care, our guidance, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... in a Federation hospital on Mezmiali two years ago, apparently of the accumulative effects of kwil addiction. He'd been picked up in Hub space in a lifeboat which we now know was one of ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... Wonder lurketh in mens eares, To steale his sweet and honyed Sentences: So that the Art and Practique part of Life, Must be the Mistresse to this Theorique. Which is a wonder how his Grace should gleane it, Since his addiction was to Courses vaine, His Companies vnletter'd, rude, and shallow, His Houres fill'd vp with Ryots, Banquets, Sports; And neuer noted in him any studie, Any retyrement, any sequestration, From open Haunts ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... 1996, creating a miniboom in information technology-based services. Private activity now accounts for 82% of GDP. On the negative side, Senegal faces deep-seated urban problems of chronic unemployment, juvenile delinquency, and drug addiction. ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... must have, in common with all hunters, a touch of the competitive in his nature, and be able to take the measure of a rival,—as Monkbarns magnanimously takes that of Davie Wilson, "'commonly called Snuffy Davie, from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, who was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a bull-dog. He would detect you ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... him back to England, and my mother came out to join my father for the rest of his holiday. (You ask me (Sir Joseph adds) whether your father smoked on the occasion of this tour. Yes, he did, cigars in moderation. But the history of his addiction to tobacco that grew upon him later in life, dates from an earlier excursion that we took together, and I was the initiator of the practice. It happened in this wise; he had been suffering from what was supposed ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... for some time in the same chamber with the well-known Ford, by whom I have formerly heard him described as a contracted scholar and a mere versifier, unacquainted with life, and unskilful in conversation. His addiction to metre was then such, that his companions familiarly called him poet. When he had opportunities of mingling with mankind, he cleared himself, as Ford likewise owned, from great ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... Sevigne, if it were permitted here to make a pun and a paradox, one might justly and descriptively say that she was not a woman of letters, but only a woman of—letters. For Madame de Sevigne's addiction to literature was not at all that of an author by profession. She simply wrote admirable private letters, in great profusion, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... His addiction to cards and drink had contributed to Mr. Plume's overthrow, and after a disappearance from public view for some time he had turned up just as Gumbolt began to be talked of, with a small sheet somewhat larger than a pocket-handkerchief, which, in prophetic ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences; So that the art and practic' part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric: Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain, His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow, His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports, And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... Reid remained in the service of William Burns does not appear. It is certain, however, that he was with him when Robert first went to plough, as Thomas has repeatedly told, as an instance of Burns's early addiction to reading, that he has seen him go to, and return from plough, with a book in his hand, and at meal-times "supping his parritch" with one hand and holding the book in ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various

... Addiction to the most degrading of vices, is a charge difficult to confute until we know specifically what vice is meant. Paine has been accused of drunkenness; but by whom? Not by his intimate acquaintances, who would have detected his guilt, but by his enemies who were never ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... after our arrival at Tientsin, and was interred in the English cemetery. He was the man who was first hit; his name was Massinger, and he claimed to be a descendant of the dramatist. He was known on board chiefly as "Hair-oil," from his addiction to plastering his bushy black hair with some shiny and odorous compound of that nature. Both his legs were broken by the ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... considerable control measures along the border with Afghanistan, Iran remains one of the primary transshipment routes for Southwest Asian heroin to Europe; suffers one of the highest opiate addiction rates in the world, and has an increasing problem with synthetic drugs; lacks anti-money laundering laws; has reached out to neighboring ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to become violent and one-sided. This violence and one-sidedness Arnold believes it the work of criticism to temper, or as he expresses it, in Culture and Anarchy, "Culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,—its fierceness and its addiction ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... She is tall and emaciated and dressed in a badly worn but fashionable summer gown. Her face bears the stigma, of a dissolute life but gives evidence of a not ungentle origin. Her air is curiously like that of a gentlewoman. She talks affectedly and her eyes show addiction to ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... editor of the Inter-Ocean was either pretty well acquainted with the comedian's addiction to spoofing, or else less susceptible to superstition than ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... epic poetry; Euterpe, of lyric poetry; Erato, of erotic poetry; Melpomene, of tragedy; Thalia, of comedy; Polyhymnia, of sacred hymns; Terpsichore, of choral song and dance; Clio, of history; and Urania, of astronomy. The last two seem to have very little in common with the addiction to singing and dancing characteristic of the rest, and are the only ones who can be imagined as feeling themselves at home in a modern museum, excepting on those evenings when the authorities use the museum (as ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... who are for leading it in paths of this kind. Mr. Frederic Harrison is very hostile to culture, and from a natural enough motive; for culture is the eternal opponent of the two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,- -its fierceness, and its addiction to an abstract system. Culture is always assigning to system-makers and systems a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friends like. A current in people's minds sets towards new ideas; people are dissatisfied with their old narrow stock of Philistine ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... chewing gum or candy, but the cure essentially lies in substituting one conditioned reflex for another. This is comparatively easy with hypnosis because, unlike narcotics, barbiturates or alcohol, smoking is purely a psychological addiction. There is no need ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... Englishman to report on the addiction of the American Indians to the use of tobacco appears to have been John Sparke who wrote the account of the voyage of Sir John Hawkins who, in the course of his travels, spent some months, in 1565, with an ill-fated French colony ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier

... his descendants, until in some cases the guardian animal becomes almost, though not quite, a clan-totem. The further development of such incipient totems among these tribes is probably prevented at the present time, not only by their agricultural habits, but also by their passionate addiction to war and fighting and head-hunting; for these pursuits necessitate the strict subordination of each community to its chief, and compel all families to unite in the cult of the hawk to the detriment of all other animal-cults, because the hawk is, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... said in unison. 'Nothing positive,' said he. 'But the suspicion of a shadow, Mr. Stuart Rem! You will not permit it?' He stated, that his friend Buttermore might have influence. Dorothea said: 'When I think of Mr. Posterley's addiction to ceremonial observances, and to matrimony, I cannot but think of a sentence that fell from Mr. Durance one day, with reference to that division of our Church: he called it:—you frown! and I would only quote Mr. Durance to you in support of your ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... themselves most creditably—showed, as a whole, just then no great promise. For the most part they were young lairds, like Mr. Mackenzie, or cadets of good Highland families; but, unlike him, they had been allowed to run wild, and chafed under harness. One or two of them had the true Highland addiction to card-playing; and though I set a pretty stern face against this curse—as I dare to call it—its effects were to be traced in late hours, more than one case of shirking "rounds," and a general slovenliness ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... of any man who holds that not Coleridge himself but the world, as interested in Coleridge's usefulness, has suffered by his addiction to opium; whether he is aware of the way in which opium affected Coleridge; and secondly, whether he is aware of the actual contributions to literature—how large they were—which Coleridge made in spite of opium. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... have already seen how the warlike character of so many monarchs gives the lie to these statements, so far as they tax the Assyrian kings with sloth and idleness. It remains to examine the charge of over-addiction to sensual delights, especially to those of the lowest and grossest description. Now it is at least remarkable that, so far as we have any real evidence, the Assyrian kings appear as monogamists. In the inscription on the god Nebo, the artist dedicates his statue to his ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... you. I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in any thing else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore, I protest to you, I am not of the party of federalists. But I am much farther from that of the anti-federalists. I approved, from the first moment, of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... rather exceeds the best efforts of ordinary microscopes, and subjects the average human mind to considerable astonishment. The perfect ease with which she can detect murderous proclivities, Mormon instincts, and addiction to maddening liquors, in a daughter's husband—who, to the most searching inspection of everybody else, appears the watery, hen-pecked, and generally intimidated young man of his age—is one of those common illustrations of the infallible acuteness of feminine judgment which are doing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... limited government eradication program; cannabis consumed largely in the CIS; used as transshipment point for illicit drugs to Russia, North America, and Western Europe from Southwest Asia; developing heroin addiction problem ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... said that he considered soap and water to be an invaluable intellectual stimulant. DICKENS was a great believer in it; so, too, was Lady Macbeth and the famous Bishop WILBERFORCE, known as "Soapy Sam" from his excessive addiction to detergents. CHARLES LEVER, again, whom he knew intimately, had a passion for washing and, so he believed, started a soap factory, which was still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various

... particular elements of the population. A question of profound interest in connection with this aspect of Prohibition demands a few words of discussion. It has been asserted with great confidence, and denied with equal positiveness, that Prohibition has had the effect of very greatly increasing the addiction to narcotic drugs. I confess my inability to decide, from any data that have come to my attention, which of these contradictory assertions is true. But it is not denied by anybody, I believe, that, whether Prohibition has anything to do with the case or not, ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin

... easy to criticize the foregoing on the score of grouping. Can alcoholism and drug addiction be separated from mental and physical disorders? And how distinguish infallibly between sex factors, temperamental traits, and mental disabilities? But the main defect in such statistical studies is that they assume in ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord

... life. One cannot read her letters to her son in college without the deepest emotion. How many such women were there, in the plain ranks of New England life, in her generation! How many are there now! Paying marvelous little heed to the discussion of women's rights, they show a wonderful addiction to ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts

... to Marshall's friends as most likely in his early middle years to stand in the way of his advancement was his addiction to ease and to a somewhat excessive conviviality. But it is worth noting that the charge of conviviality was never repeated after he was appointed Chief Justice; and as to his unstudious habits, therein perhaps lay one of the causes contributing to his achievement. Both as attorney and ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... profound a study of human nature as to think that if they have shown a man to be of loose life with regard to women they have shown him to be one that would tell needless lies to a jury—a conviction unsupported by the familiar facts of life and character. Different men have different vices, and addiction to one kind of "upsetting sin" does not imply addiction to an unrelated kind. Doubtless a rake is a liar in so far as is needful to concealment, but it does not follow that he will commit perjury to save a horsethief from the penitentiary ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... apparent that Silas had not cunning enough to keep his own. He was generally spoken of as a "poor mushed creatur"; and that avoidance of his neighbours, which had before been referred to his ill-will and to a probable addiction to worse company, was now considered ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... obstacle to be avoided is that of ill-health. The importance of a moderate and sustaining diet in regard to psychic development cannot be too strongly urged. All overloading of the stomach with indigestible food and addiction to alcoholic drinks tends to cloud the spiritual perception, It depletes the brain-centres, gives the heart too much work, and overthrows the equilibrium of the system. Ill-health follows; the mind is centred upon the ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial

... walking upon stilts. As you have truly said, his character mellowed and toned down in his later years, without in any way losing its own individuality, and its clear, vigorous, unflinching perception of and addiction to principles. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... legislation to assist the States to promote concerted action in dealing with this nationwide problem. I shall carry forward the vigorous efforts of the Administration to improve the international control of the traffic in narcotics and, in cooperation with State and local agencies, to combat narcotic addiction ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... case was one which appeared to depend upon improper dieting. A country farmer, of immense weight, came from a distance to consult him, and having given an account of his daily meals, which showed no small degree of addiction to animal food, Mr. Abernethy said, "Go away, sir, I won't attempt to prescribe for such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various

... liberalization, and not the profits, of academic life. In arguing upon their case, it is not the fair logic to say: These pursuits taint the decorum of the studious character; it is not fair to calculate how much is lost to the man of letters by such addiction to fox-hunting; but, on the contrary, what is gained to the fox-hunter, who would, at any rate, be such, by so considerable a homage paid to letters, and so inevitable a commerce with men of learning. Anything whatsoever attained in this direction, is probably so much ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... resolve to be worthy of my sires made me do the second,—not, indeed, exactly; I never got drunk: my father disgusted me with that vice betimes. To his gluttony I owe my vegetable diet, and to his inebriety my addiction to water. No, I did not get drunk with peers; but I was just as agreeable to them as if I had been equally embruted. I knew intimately all the 'Hats' in the University, and I was henceforth looked up to by the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... who was at school with Fouquier, and has had frequent occasions of observing him at different periods since, that he always appeared to him to be a man of mild manners, and by no means likely to become the instrument of these atrocities; but a strong addiction to gaming having involved him in embarrassments, he was induced to accept the office of Public Accuser to the Tribunal, and was progressively led on from administering to the iniquity of his employers, to find a gratification ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... first, but by no means last, exhibited the curious local jealousy of a Welsh-speaking Englishman; the doctor and the Italian barometer-seller at Cerrig-y-Druidion; the "best Pridydd of the world" in Anglesey, with his unlucky addiction to beer and flattery; the waiter at Bala; the "ecclesiastical cat" (a cat worthy to rank with those of Southey and Gautier); the characters of the walk across the hills from Machynlleth to the Devil's ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury



Words linked to "Addiction" :   physiological state, physiological condition, Justinian code, alcohol addiction, caffein addiction, white plague, narcotic, addict, heroin addiction, craving, awarding, dependance, award, physical condition, Roman law, civil law, dependence, jus civile



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