Fascinated

How to spell fascinated

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce fascinated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fascinated mean?

1. adjectiveStrongly drawn in and intensely interested by something.
2. verbPast tense of fascinate: captured someone's attention completely and held their interest.

Fascinated in a sentence

• adjective

  She was fascinated by the way the old clock kept perfect time.

• verb

  The documentary fascinated everyone who watched it.

• adjective

  The children were utterly fascinated by the science demonstration.

• verb

  The magician's sleight of hand fascinated the whole room.

Where does fascinated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb fascinare, meaning 'to bewitch, to enchant, or to cast a spell on someone'. That verb grew from the noun fascinum, which named a magic spell and also the protective charm or amulet Romans wore to ward off the evil eye. When English adopted the verb in the late 1500s, it carried this literal sense of being placed under a spell, so to be fascinated originally meant to be magically held or transfixed. Over time the supernatural flavour faded and the word came to describe the entirely ordinary state of having one's attention irresistibly captured. The silent 'c' in the 'sc' cluster is a direct fossil of that Latin fascinum, which is exactly the letter most writers are tempted to drop.

How the word is built

• fascin- (from Latin fascinum: a spell or charm)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past/participle suffix)