entranced

1. 1
   adjective

   Held in fixed attention, as though under a magical spell that captures one's focus.

   Like a cat fixed on a laser dot, unable to break its stare.

   The audience remained entranced throughout the long, wordless film.

   He stood entranced before the painting, oblivious to the crowd jostling past.

   Similarspellbound, enthralled, captivated, mesmerized, rapt

   Oppositebored, indifferent

   Note

   Fascination so complete it resembles a trance. Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars (1956) pushes it to the border: an entranced spectator "cut off from reality," living a dream while believing he is awake. Unlike a simple on-off state, it grades (more entranced, most entranced). It works before a noun (the entranced spectator) and after verbs like stand, sit or remain.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of entrance.

   The novelist's vivid descriptions entranced readers for hundreds of pages.

   The travelers were entranced by the slow-burning colors of the desert sunset.

   Note

   One form serves both the past tense (the music entranced them) and the participle (they were entranced by it). The verb entrance has two meanings, "to delight and fill with wonder" and "to put into a trance," and this form carries either. Only that verb produces it. The noun entrance, meaning a doorway or the act of entering, shares the spelling but never takes -ed.

3. 3
   adjective

   Put into a trance, a sleeplike state of reduced awareness and altered consciousness.

   Like the dazed state between waking and dreaming, when the world feels distant.

   The deeply entranced patient remained still while the therapist spoke softly.

   The drummers played until several dancers fell entranced and swayed with closed eyes.

   Similarhypnotized, mesmerized, spellbound

   Note

   The literal sense, built on the verb entrance, "to put into a trance," plus -ed. Robert Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer (1801) spells it intranced and hedges it with "as if intranced," the same comparison that the figurative "spellbound" sense carries in its own definition. Choose this meaning when an actual trance is involved, as in hypnosis or ritual drumming. Choose the figurative one for ordinary fascination.

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