Word.ws English Dictionary

enthral

enthral is the alternative spelling of enthrall.

Meaning of enthrall

Verb

enthrall (third-person singular simple present enthralls, present participle enthralling, simple past and past participle enthralled)

  1. (figuratively, transitive) To hold spellbound.
    • Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them.1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 5, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC
  2. (archaic, figuratively, transitive) To make subservient.
    • […] Who oft as undeservedly enthrall / His outward freedom: Tyranny must be;1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
  3. (literally, literary, transitive, otherwise archaic) To enslave; to subjugate.
    Antonyms:
    disenthrall

Forms of enthral

third-person singular presententhrals
present participleenthralling
past participleenthralled
pastenthralled

Words formed from enthral

Questions about enthral

What is enthral the alternative spelling of?
Enthral is the alternative spelling of enthrall.

Words near enthral in the dictionary

  1. enthomopathogenic
  2. enthorhinal
  3. enthorinal
  4. Enthoven
  5. Enthovens
  6. enthral
  7. enthraldom
  8. enthraldoms
  9. enthraled
  10. enthraling
  11. enthrall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: enthral (page history and authors); enthrall (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “enthral.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/enthral. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.