[ad. L. fascinātiōn-em, n. of action f. fascināre to FASCINATE.]
1. The casting of a spell; sorcery, enchantment; an instance of this, a spell, incantation. Obs. exc. Hist.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xi. § 3. 46. Fascination is the power and act of Imagination intensiue vpon other bodies.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 60. We deny that fascination or bewitching is done onely by sight.
1626. Donne, Serm., cxxxix. V. 488. When Elijah used that holy Fascination upon Elisha to spread his mantle over him.
1681. Glanvill, Sadducismus, I. 1. I hope it may afford some, not unseasonable, Accounts of the odd Phœnomena of Witchcraft and Fascination.
1702. C. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, I. iv. (1852), 66. So many fatalities attended the adventurers in their essays, that they began to suspect that the Indian sorcerers had laid the place under some fascination; and that the English could not prosper upon such enchanted ground, so that they were almost afraid of adventuring any more.
1855. Smedley, Occult Sciences, 204. A belief in Fascination (strictly so called) appears to have been very generally prevalent in most ages and countries.
† b. The state of being under a spell. Obs.
1651. J. F[reake], Agrippa’s Occ. Philos., 101. Fascination is a binding, which comes from the spirit of the Witch, through the eyes of him that is bewitched, entering to his heart.
1767. Fawkes, Theocritus, VI., note. The antients imagined that spitting in their bosoms three times … would prevent fascination.
2. The action and the faculty of fascinating their prey attributed to serpents, etc.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 219. They [Rattle Snakes] are supposed to have the power of fascination in an eminent degree; and it is generally believed that they charm birds, rabbits, squirrels and other animals, in such a manner as they lose the power of resistance.
1848. Lytton, Harold, I. i. The fascination of the serpent on the bird held her mute and frozen.
b. The state of being so fascinated.
1831. Brewster, Nat. Magic, iii. (1833), 43. Mrs. A. described herself as at the time sensible of a feeling like what we conceive of fascination, compelling her for a time to gaze on this melancholy apparition.
3. Fascinating quality; irresistibly attractive influence; an instance or mode of this.
1697. Evelyn, Numismata, ix. 301. Who by whatever unaccountable Fascination, or other material Quality of Mastring Spirits, have created Friends of deadly Enemies.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 101.
| Some to the fascination of a name | |
| Surrender judgment hoodwinked. |
a. 1806. K. White, My own Charac., 42, in Rem. (1816), I. 29.
| I’m a general lover, if that’s commendation, | |
| And yet can’t withstand you know whose fascination. |
1816. J. Scott, Vis. Paris (ed. 5), 209. She [a Frenchwoman] will ever be felt by the majority, when present, to be a creature of fascination.
1843. Prescott, Mexico (1820), I. 185. The career thus thrown open had all the fascinations of a desperate hazard.
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Uses of Great Men, Wks. (Bohn) I. 283. Like a master standing firm on legs of iron, well-born, rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages, drawing all men by fascination into tributaries and supporters of his power.
1860. Hawthorne, Transform., I. xix. 203. He seemed to feel that perilous fascination which haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the unwary one to fling himself over the very horror of the thing.
