captivate
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin captīvō; synchronically analyzable as captive + -ate.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkæptɪveɪt/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkæptəˌveɪt/
- Hyphenation: cap‧tiv‧ate
Verb
captivate (third-person singular simple present captivates, present participle captivating, simple past and past participle captivated)
- To attract and hold (someone's) interest and attention; to charm.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
- One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.” He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.
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- (obsolete) To take prisoner; to capture; to subdue.
- c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iv]:
- Their woes whom fortune captivates.
- 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica:
- 'Tis a greater credit to know the ways of captivating Nature, and making her subserve our purposes, than to have learned all the intrigues of policy.
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Related terms
- captivation
Translations
to attract and hold interest and attention of
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Anagrams
- captative
Latin
Verb
captīvāte
- second-person plural present active imperative of captīvō