charmed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of charm.

   The speaker charmed the skeptical investors within minutes.

   Folk healers once charmed away fevers with simple chants.

   Note

   Charm is a regular verb, so one -ed form does both jobs: she charmed the room, and she has charmed the room. In the passive the line with the adjectives blurs. "Was charmed by her warmth" reads as the pleased adjective, while "fevers were charmed away" keeps the verb's older magic of subduing by incantation.

2. 2
   adjective

   Feeling pleased and quietly delighted by how agreeable or pleasant something is.

   The guests seemed thoroughly charmed by the inn's quiet courtyard.

   He left the meeting charmed by her warmth and easy wit.

   Similardelighted, enchanted, captivated, pleased, entranced

   Oppositeunimpressed, displeased

3. 3
   adjective

   Having unusual and lasting good luck, as if protected or shaped by magic.

   The team enjoyed a charmed season, winning even the games they should have lost.

   Critics said the young heir lived a charmed existence, untouched by hardship.

   Similarlucky, blessed, fortunate, magical

   Oppositeunlucky, cursed, ill-fated

   Note

   Here the magic has turned into luck. The turn shows in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, where a "charmed skin" is literally proof against the sword, with Jove himself warding off the blow. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) uses the fixed phrase: to have, or to bear, a charmed life. It describes someone or something that keeps escaping what should have finished it.

4. 4
   adjective

   Placed under the influence of a spell worked through a magic charm.

   The knight lay charmed, unable to move until the enchantress released him.

   A charmed mirror showed only what the sorcerer wished it to reveal.

   Similarbewitched, enchanted, spellbound

5. 5
   adjective

   Of a subatomic particle: possessing a nonzero value of the property called charm.

   The experiment produced several charmed mesons during the high-energy collisions.

   A charmed baryon contains at least one charm quark alongside lighter ones.

   Note

   Particle physics uses it as the adjective of charm, the name of a flavor quantum number. Charmed hadrons, both mesons and baryons, carry at least one charm quark and decay through the weak interaction. Mind the split in usage: the property and the quark take the bare noun (a charm quark), while the composite particle that carries it is charmed (a charmed meson).

Showing meanings only. Show all 5