fascinate
verb
Simple meaning
To evoke an intense interest or attraction in someone.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fasuhnaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfæsəneɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To evoke an intense interest or attraction in someone.
To be irresistibly charming or attractive to.
To make someone hold motionless; to spellbind.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To evoke an intense interest or attraction in someone.
Used this way, fascinate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use fascinate
- “The snake charmer fascinates the cobra.”verb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.