fascination
Americannoun
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fascinations
plural
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the power or action of fascinating.
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the state or an instance of being fascinated.
They watched in fascination.
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a fascinating quality; powerful attraction; charm.
the fascination of foreign travel.
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Cards. a form of solitaire.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fascination
1595–1605; < Latin fascinātiōn- (stem of fascinātiō ) a bewitching. See fascinate, -ion
Explanation
If diamondback turtles hold a certain fascination for you, you know everything there is to know about them, you talk about them all the time, and maybe you've embroidered one on your pillowcase. Fascination is an irresistible attraction. Be careful to use the right preposition: you've got a fascination with handsome princes, but handsome princes hold a fascination for you. When you have a fascination, it's as if you're bewitched, and — what do you know? — the word goes back to the Latin fascinare, which means "cast a spell on."
Vocabulary lists containing fascination
The Cay
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"The Witch Boy" by Molly Knox Ostertag
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Schooled
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In the 1990s, Bollywood itself helped turn Mumbai's feared underworld figures into objects of fascination.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026
"All summer long, I've been picking up bits of drones washed up on the beach," added Baronov, a mechanical engineer by training who harbours a fascination with military hardware.
From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2026
Four years ago, Times columnist Nicolas Goldberg wrote an opinion piece about his fascination with what to him sounded like a profound project about the meaning of time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
Highlights of the scrappy, curator-driven event in New York feature paeans to workers, a fascination with UFOs, toy-driven nostalgia, and more.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Under the kitchen window his shamed, downcast eyes fell upon a curiously shaped stone, a stone of such fascination that he squatted down and picked it up and turned it over in his hands.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
It’s cast with some of the more attractive young people available, while the characters of “Sterling Point” looks like standard-issue teenagers with common fascinations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
Maybe the only purpose in any of this is to prolong morbid fascinations, to twist the knife.
From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026
One of the eternal fascinations of Test cricket, especially in these Bazballistic times, is that there are almost infinite ways for interpreting what has happened.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2024
Take Giamatti’s new podcast, Chinwag, in which he and author Stephen Asma follow their fascinations with things think Sasquatch.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 4, 2023
Armed with such a nucleus as this, the fascinations of the pastime begin to make themselves evident.
From Peeps at Postage Stamps by Stanley Currie Johnson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
