Meaning
Fascinating to the point of trance - holding attention so completely that everything else falls away. Strictly it means of hypnosis, the induced sleep-like state, and pharmacology keeps the older sense of a sleep-giving drug. Fine as praise for music and prose, technical in medicine and psychology; the sleep at the root is still faintly audible every time it is said. Regional use: General English; classical origin.
Origin
The word descends from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, who lived with his twin Thanatos, death, in a cave where the sun never reached, where night and day meet and the river Lethe, forgetfulness, runs; poppies and other soporific plants grew at the door. Linguists trace his name to the Proto-Indo-European root for sleep, and his descendants are many: hypnosis, formed as sleep plus condition for the induced trance, and the hypnotic medicines that put patients under. The adjective's path runs from Greek hupnotikos, inclined to sleep, through Late Latin and French hypnotique into English; Agatha Christie's doctor of 1929 reports a strong hypnotic administered to a patient who will wake perfectly well in the morning, and the modern figurative use - a song, a rhythm, a stare that captures attention to the exclusion of all else - is the god's gift to reviewers.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- hypnotic gaze
- hypnotic trance
- hypnotically
Usage Examples
- The soprano's hypnotic held note silenced even the box-office chatter at the back.
- Doctors prescribed a strong hypnotic and, by morning, the world looked no better than before.
- The tail-lights had a hypnotic rhythm all their own; four hundred kilometres later he was still watching.