Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Idioms, Encyclopedia.


1. Firmly in position; stationary: a fixed dwelling.
3. Not subject to change or variation; unchanging: pensioners on a fixed income.
4. Chemistry
a. Not readily evaporating; nonvolatile.
a. Firmly, often dogmatically held: fixed beliefs.
6. Supplied, especially with funds. Often used in combination: a well-fixed bachelor.
7. Illegally prearranged as to outcome: a fixed election.

fix′ed·ly (fĭk′sĭd-lē) adv.
fix′ed·ness n.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.fixedness - remaining in place
lifelessness, motionlessness, stillness - a state of no motion or movement; "the utter motionlessness of a marble statue"
rootage - fixedness by or as if by roots; "strengthened by rootage in the firm soil of faith"
2.fixedness - the quality of being fixed in place as by some firm attachment
immovability, immovableness - not capable of being moved or rearranged
looseness - the quality of movability by virtue of being free from attachment or other restraints
3.fixedness - the quality of being fixed and unchangeablefixedness - the quality of being fixed and unchangeable; "the fixedness of his gaze upset her"
unchangeability, unchangeableness, unchangingness, changelessness - the quality of being unchangeable; having a marked tendency to remain unchanged
References in classic literature ?
Gliding along the silent streets, and holding his course where they were darkest and most gloomy, the man who had left the widow's house crossed London Bridge, and arriving in the City, plunged into the backways, lanes, and courts, between Cornhill and Smithfield; with no more fixedness of purpose than to lose himself among their windings, and baffle pursuit, if any one were dogging his steps.
"The man's views are hateful enough," she answered, "but he is in earnest, and however misguided he may be there is something noble in his unselfishness, in his, steady fixedness of purpose."
Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy complexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the constrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinquish all men that are born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying the other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the ghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight.
He looked at him, as he passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to dinner, with a glazed fixedness that Mr Dorrit did not like.
Josiah and Chiqui encourage us to try some if not all the following practices to help remove blind spots, break the familiarity bias or cognitive fixedness mindset: