captivate

Borrowed from Latin captīvō; synchronically analyzable as captive +‎ -ate.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkæptɪveɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkæptəˌveɪt/
• Hyphenation: cap‧tiv‧ate

captivate (third-person singular simple present captivates, present participle captivating, simple past and past participle captivated)

1. 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.

2. (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.

• captivation

• captative

captīvāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of captīvō