Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb British Alternative spelling of
mesmerize .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb induce hypnosis in
- verb attract strongly, as if with a magnet
Etymologies
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Examples
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"They do mesmerise you with the way they pass it," Ferguson said .
Sir Alex Ferguson: No one has given United a hiding like Barcelona did 2011
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But if this slipperiness makes them intriguing, it's the consistent sensuality of Warpaint's sound that makes them mesmerise.
Warpaint: The Fool - review Maddy Costa 2010
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A relief map of moorland fells can mesmerise with its geometric language of lines and symbols.
Map of a Nation by Rachel Hewitt – review Ian Thomson 2010
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They can recite epics concerning plagues, fires and revolutions, expound the story of gods and religion and mesmerise you with anecdotes about architects themselves – some gentlemanly and serious minded, some crooked, others close to insanity.
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We enjoy watching brilliant wingers mesmerise outclassed full-backs.
Flawless Spain are a footballing pain: I blame the English parents 2010
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Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
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Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
Archive 2008-09-01 2008
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Sidekick are keen to move beyond the ‘cool’ buzz surrounding the project as soon as possible and begin to actively engage (mesmerise even from my experience).
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Its one of those metrics that can mesmerise politicians.
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Nothing against accents or gaps, please note, but please, tell me they don't mesmerise YOU out of the action!
Because girliejones said I has to... editormum 2007
whichbe commented on the word mesmerise
To capture someone's complete attention or transfix them.
This perpetuates the name of the eighteenth-century physician Franz Mesmer of Vienna. He believed that a magnetic force flowed from the stars to act on us all and that diseases were caused by blockages stopping the magnetic fluid flowing through the body. He called the force "animal magnetism", a term we still sometimes use for people with strong personalities.
He tried acting on this force with magnets — he persuaded one of his early patients, for example, to swallow iron filings and then passed a magnet over her legs. Later — he'd moved to Paris by then — he created his baquet, a large tub filled with iron filings and magnetised water that 20 people could sit round (we know that water can't be magnetised, but he didn't). Projecting iron rods were provided for the patients to grasp or press to the affected spot.
In his salon, quiet music played and perfumes scented the air. Dr Mesmer would enter, dressed in a long robe of lilac-coloured silk, richly embroidered with gold flowers, holding a white magnetic rod in his hand. He treated every patient at the baquet with gestures, passes of his white rod, murmured words and searching looks.
Unfortunately, he became too popular, especially with the French queen, Marie Antoinette. Two politically motivated enquiries in 1784, one headed by Dr Guillotin of head-chopping fame, the other by Benjamin Franklin (the American ambassador to France at the time), concluded it was all done by manipulating the imagination of patients. In essence, Mesmer was, without realising it, putting his patients into a trance and giving them post-hypnotic suggestions to clear up psychosomatic ailments. All that stuff about iron bars and animal magnetism was irrelevant.
Mesmer's reputation never recovered, but his name entered the language and later became an alternative term for hypnotism.
(from World Wide Words)
May 22, 2008