enthrall

present singular third person enthralls · participle present enthralling · participle past enthralled · past enthralled · alternative UK enthral · alternative archaic inthral · alternative archaic inthrall

1. figurativelytransitiveTo hold spellbound.

   Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them.

   1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 5, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC

   1 more example

   In the center of the circle of glittering black bodies he leaped and roared and shook his heavy spear in the same mad abandon that enthralled his fellow savages. The last remnant of his civilization was forgotten—he was a primitive man to the fullest now; reveling in the freedom of the fierce, wild life he loved, gloating in his kingship among these wild blacks.

   1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 17, in The Return of Tarzan

   Synonyms: bewitch, captivate, charm, enchant, transfix, enchain

2. archaicfigurativelytransitiveTo make subservient.

   […] Who oft as undeservedly enthrall / His outward freedom: Tyranny must be;

   1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

3. literallyliterarytransitiveotherwise archaicTo enslave; to subjugate.

   Antonyms: disenthrall