transfix

verbC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: transfixed, transfixing, transfixes

To transfix is to hold somebody motionless with amazement. Transfixed by the sight, stood transfixed, transfix an audience.

It is nearly always passive, and being transfixed is stronger than being fascinated, since the person cannot move. The literal Latin sense is to pierce through, which is where the stillness comes from.

Definitions of transfix

1verbtransfixTo hold somebody motionless with amazement.C1
“The children sat transfixed as the magician pulled a rabbit out of the hat.”

transfix is a holding.

Where it comes from

Latin transfigere means to pierce through, from trans plus figere, to fix or pierce.

Latin
transfigō — to pierce through
Old French
transfixer
Middle French
transfixer
English, today
transfix

Built from

trans- · Latin — through
figō · Latin — to pierce

From Middle French transfixer, from Old French transfixer, from Latin transfigō (“to pierce through”), from trans- (“through”) + figō (“to pierce”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

transfix in the wild

The phurba's energy is fierce and transfixing, used for purposes such as exorcism, weather manipulation, meditation, and blessings.
Phurba
In linguistic morphology, a transfix is a discontinuous affix which is inserted into a word root, as in root-and-pattern systems of morphology, like those of many Semitic languages.
Transfix
Transfixes are different from prefixes, suffixes, and infixes in that a complete transfix is the entire structure which is placed into a root.
Transfix
An inflection expresses grammatical categories with affixation (such as prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix, and transfix), apophony (as with Indo-European ablaut), or other modifications.
Inflection

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the figō family

fix

transfix — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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