fascinating

1. 1
   adjective

   Powerfully interesting and attractive, capturing and holding a person's attention.

   The documentary offered a fascinating look at deep-sea creatures.

   He finds the history of ancient languages utterly fascinating.

   Similarcaptivating, intriguing, engrossing, absorbing, compelling

   Oppositeboring, dull, tedious, uninteresting

   Note

   Less a description of a thing than of its effect on whoever meets it, which is why it so often sits in the frame find something fascinating. It grades freely (more fascinating, most fascinating) and pairs with strong intensifiers such as absolutely, utterly and truly. That gives a quick test against the verb form: "the talk was utterly fascinating" is the adjective, while "the talk was fascinating the audience" needs an object and is the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of fascinate.

   The lecturer was fascinating her students with tales of lost cities.

   Fascinating a skeptical jury is the lawyer's special talent.

   Note

   The participle carries the verb's full range, including its stronger meaning of holding someone motionless, as if spellbound. After a form of be it builds the progressive and takes a direct object: she was fascinating her students. As a gerund it heads a noun phrase that can stand as the subject of a sentence, as in fascinating a skeptical jury.

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