A.Word.A.Day -- mesmeric

A.Word.A.Day

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May 14, 2007

This week's theme
Eponyms

This week's words
mesmeric
penelope
Alford plea
selenography
freudian slip

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, a British politician in the eighteenth century, was so fond of gambling that he spent the whole day playing, while devouring slices of bread with a filling between them. Little did he know that his name would become eponymous with that food. From sandwich to boycott we use numerous eponyms (words named after people) in our daily discourse. In this week's AWAD, we'll look at five not so common eponyms.

mesmeric

(mez-MER-ik, mes-)

adjective: Fascinating; hypnotic.

[After physician F.A. Mesmer (1734-1815) who discovered a way of inducing hypnosis through what he called animal magnetism.]

"Michael Dempsey: Bill would coax money out of record companies in a kind of mesmeric way."
Alexis Petridis; If You're Brave, Do It Like We Did; The Guardian (London, UK); Apr 27, 2007.

See more usage examples of mesmeric in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

X-Bonus

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there. -Yasutani Roshi, Zen master (1885-1973)

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