mesmerize
verb/ˈmɛzməɹaɪz/
Etymology Back-formation from mesmerism, thus mesmerism + -ize; first attested in 1829.
1
To exercise mesmerism on; to affect another person, such as to heal or soothe, through the use of animal magnetism.
- Mesmer had about a hundred people whom he had instructed as magnetisers, some of whom belonged to the nobility, who also "mesmerised" people by making passes over the affected parts of the body.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 142:
2
To spellbind; to enthrall.
- She mesmerized the audience with her tricks
- Then he commenced to talk, really talk, and inside of two flaps of a herring’s fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt’s boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 99:
- Derived terms
- demesmerize, mesmeree, mesmerizable, mesmerization, mesmerizer, unmesmerize
- Related terms
- hypnotize