Mesmerize
verb MEZ-muh-ryze
What It Means
Mesmerize means “to hold the attention of someone entirely; to interest or amaze someone so much that nothing else is seen or noticed.” The word is often used in the phrase “be mesmerized.”
// The crowd was mesmerized by the flawlessly synchronous movements of the acrobats.
MESMERIZE in Context
“Yep, Ruth [Handler] ended up naming two of her iconic dolls after her kids. The idea for Barbie and Ken stemmed from a family Europe trip in 1956…. Barbara, then still a teenager, saw a doll that looked like an adult woman in a store window in Switzerland and was mesmerized.” — Korin Miller, Women’s Health, 21 July 2023
Merriam Webster Dictionary
