Other forms: fascinated, fascinating, fascinates
To fascinate is to charm and attract somebody so strongly that they cannot look away. Fascinate an audience, utterly fascinated, the subject fascinates him.
The word once meant to cast a spell, and the Latin behind it is the name of a charm worn against the evil eye — so to fascinate somebody was originally to bewitch them, and the modern sense keeps the idea of being held against your will.
1verbfascinateTo charm and attract somebody so strongly that they cannot look away.
“Dinosaurs have always fascinated my son, and he knows all their names.”
fascinate is a charming.
Latin fascinare means to bewitch, from fascinum, a charm worn against the evil eye.
Latin
fascinātus
English, today
fascinate
Built from
Latin fascinātus, perfect passive participle of fascinō (“to enchant, bewitch, fascinate”) (see -ate), from fascinum (“a phallus-shaped amulet worn around the neck in Ancient Rome; witchcraft”) + -ō, itself of obscure origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA