Magnetic means attracting iron, or attracting people. A magnetic field, magnetic north, a magnetic personality.
Magnetic north is not true north and the difference changes with time and place, which is why maps carry a correction. Only a few metals are magnetic — iron, nickel and cobalt among them — and aluminium and copper are not, whatever people expect.
1adjectivemagneticAttracting iron.
“A magnetic strip on the kitchen wall keeps the knives in place.”
2adjectivestronglyStrongly attractive to people.
“She has a magnetic personality, and people are always drawn to her.”
magnetic is a quality of attraction.
Middle English
magnete
English
magnet
English, today
magnetic
From magnet + -ic. magnet comes from Middle English magnete. From Middle English magnete, via Old French magnete, Latin magnēs (“lodestone”), from Ancient Greek μαγνῆτις [λίθος] (“Magnesian [stone]”), either after the Lydian city Magnesia ad Sipylum (modern-day Manisa, Turkey), or after the Greek region of Μαγνησία (whence came the colonists who founded the city in Lydia). Related to manganese, magnesia and magnesium.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA