Word.ws English Dictionary

transitional object

transitional object noun: an object, such as a security blanket or stuffed toy, used by a young child to self-soothe and cope with separation from a parent or other attachment figure.

Noun

transitional object (plural transitional objects)

  1. An object, such as a security blanket or stuffed toy, used by a young child to self-soothe and cope with separation from a parent or other attachment figure.
    • It would also be many years before I learned about [ Donald Winnicott's ] primary contribution to psychoanalysis, the concept of the "transitional object." Babies often make use of a special possession as they learn that they're separate from their mother. It occupies a "territory between the...2005, Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2012, page 56

Forms of transitional object

pluraltransitional objects

Questions about transitional object

What does transitional object mean?
Transitional object means an object, such as a security blanket or stuffed toy, used by a young child to self-soothe and cope with separation from a parent or other attachment figure.
What part of speech is transitional object?
Transitional object is a noun.
What is the plural of transitional object?
The plural of transitional object is transitional objects.

Words near transitional object in the dictionary

  1. transitional epithelium
  2. transitional epitheliums
  3. transitional jacket
  4. transitional jackets
  5. transitional justice
  6. transitional object
  7. transitional objects
  8. transitional planet
  9. transitional planets
  10. transitional provision
  11. transitional provisions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: transitional object (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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