2 uses
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Definition
to completely hold someone's entire attention
or more rarely: to hypnotize
or more rarely: to hypnotize
- Lydia, rocking in her wheelchair, appeared to be mesmerized by the one-sided phone conversation; Ethel held the candlestick like a weapon.p. 201.0
- What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television's dominance of our culture—for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden.p. 448.9
There are no more uses of "mesmerize" in A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Typical Usage
(best examples)