fascination
English
Etymology
From Latin fascinare ("to bewitch"), possibly from Ancient Greek βασκαίνιεν (baskaínien, “to speak ill of; to curse”)[1]
Pronunciation
- (US) IPA(key): /fæsɪˈneɪʃən/
- Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Noun
fascination (countable and uncountable, plural fascinations)
- (archaic) The act of bewitching, or enchanting
- Synonyms: enchantment, witchcraft
- 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:
- Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence.
- The state or condition of being fascinated.
- 1934, Robert Ervin Howard, The People of the Black Circle
- Sliding down the shaft he lay still, the spear jutting above him its full length, like a horrible stalk growing out of his back.
The girl stared down at him in morbid fascination, until Khemsa took her arm and led her through the gate.
- Sliding down the shaft he lay still, the spear jutting above him its full length, like a horrible stalk growing out of his back.
- 1913, Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, A Wayfarer in China
- But the compensations are many: changing scenes, long days out of doors, freedom from the bondage of conventional life, and above all, the fascination of living among peoples of primitive simplicity and yet of a civilization so ancient that it makes all that is oldest in the West seem raw and crude and unfinished.
- To my fascination, the skies turned all kinds of colours.
- 1934, Robert Ervin Howard, The People of the Black Circle
- Something which fascinates.
- Life after death had always been a great fascination to him.
Derived terms
Translations
the act of fascinating, bewitching, or enchanting; enchantment; witchcraft
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the state or condition of being fascinated
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that which fascinates; a charm; a spell
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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French
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Related terms
Further reading
- “fascination” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
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