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Wiktionary

fascination

English

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Etymology

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From Latin fascinare ("to bewitch"), possibly from Ancient Greek βασκαίνιεν (baskaínien, “to speak ill of; to curse”)[1] Morphologically fascinate +‎ -ion

Pronunciation

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Noun

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fascination (countable and uncountable, plural fascinations)

  1. (archaic) The act of bewitching, or enchanting
    Synonyms: enchantment, witchcraft
  2. The state or condition of being fascinated.
    To my fascination, the skies turned all kinds of colours.
    • 1934, Robert Ervin Howard, The People of the Black Circle:
      Sliding down the shaft he lay still, the spear jutting above him its full length, like a horrible stalk growing out of his back.
      The girl stared down at him in morbid fascination, until Khemsa took her arm and led her through the gate.
    • 1913, Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, A Wayfarer in China:
      But the compensations are many: changing scenes, long days out of doors, freedom from the bondage of conventional life, and above all, the fascination of living among peoples of primitive simplicity and yet of a civilization so ancient that it makes all that is oldest in the West seem raw and crude and unfinished.
  3. Something which fascinates.
    Life after death had always been a great fascination to him.
    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 244:
      Though more thoughtful than Madame de Mercœur, yet it asked far more knowledge of society—that wilderness of small intricacies—for her to penetrate into the motives of those who seemed so suddenly struck with her fascination; but she was too clear-headed to be deceived, and set it all down under one general belief in caprice.

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

References

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  1. ^ "Fascination" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. 10. 1911.

French

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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fascination f (plural fascinations)

  1. fascination
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Further reading

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Swedish

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Noun

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fascination c

  1. fascination (intense interest or something that causes it)

Declension

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Declension of fascination 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative fascination fascinationen fascinationer fascinationerna
Genitive fascinations fascinationens fascinationers fascinationernas
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References

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