English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin fascinare ("to bewitch"), possibly from Ancient Greek βασκαίνιεν (baskaínien, to speak ill of; to curse)[1] Morphologically fascinate +‎ -ion

Pronunciation edit

  • (US) IPA(key): /fæsɪˈneɪʃən/
    • (file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun edit

fascination (countable and uncountable, plural fascinations)

  1. (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:
      Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence.
  2. The state or condition of being fascinated.
    To my fascination, the skies turned all kinds of colours.
    • 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.
    • 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.
  3. Something which fascinates.
    Life after death had always been a great fascination to him.
    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Francesca Carrara. [], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, [], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 244:
      Though more thoughtful than Madame de Mercœur, yet it asked far more knowledge of society—that wilderness of small intricacies—for her to penetrate into the motives of those who seemed so suddenly struck with her fascination; but she was too clear-headed to be deceived, and set it all down under one general belief in caprice.

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

References edit

  1. ^ "Fascination" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. 10. 1911.

French edit

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

fascination f (plural fascinations)

  1. fascination

Related terms edit

Further reading edit

Swedish edit

Noun edit

fascination c

  1. fascination (intense interest or something that causes it)

Declension edit

Declension of fascination 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative fascination fascinationen fascinationer fascinationerna
Genitive fascinations fascinationens fascinationers fascinationernas

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References edit