magnetize

Verb

magnetize (third-person singular simple present magnetizes, present participle magnetizing, simple past and past participle magnetized)

1. (transitive) To make magnetic.
2. (intransitive) To become magnetic.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To hypnotize using mesmerism.
   • Lisette let him alone, it is dangerous to push the poor creature to extremities, Doctor, suppose we Magnetize him?c. 1789, Elizabeth Inchbald, Animal Magnetism: A Farce, Dublin, P. Byron, Act III, p. 82
   • Dr. Bertrand tells us that the first patient he ever magnetized, being attacked by a disease of an hysterical character, became subject to convulsions of so long duration and so violent in character, that he had never, in all his practice, seen the like […]1864, Robert Dale Owen, “The Convulsionists of St. Médard”, in Atlantic Monthly, volume 13, page 347
4. (figuratively, transitive) To attract, allure or entice; to captivate or entrance.
   • As for Dudley Venner, no beauty in all the world could have so soothed and magnetized him as the very repose and subdued gentleness which the Widow had thought would make the best possible background for her own more salient and effective attractions.1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., chapter 21, in Elsie Venner
   • Mr. Hamlin’s hand passed carressingly twice or thrice along her sleeve with a peculiar gentleness that seemed to magnetize her.1894, Bret Harte, “A Protégée of Jack Hamlin’s”, in A Protégée of Jack Hamlin’s and Other Stories, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 49