dread fascination

Definitions

1. 1

   A malignant supernatural influence produced by the evil eye.

   • Fair was Eutelidas once, with his beautiful hair, But admiring his face in the stream, on himself he inflicted A dread fascination, and wasted away with disease.
   • Hence this charm, with its mermaid or siren and its pendant bells, must have been considered to possess the power of attracting to itself the dread fascination, and thus averting the evil eye from the person of its possessor.
2. 2

   A response to something characterized by staring, an inability to move or intervene, and…

   A response to something characterized by staring, an inability to move or intervene, and feelings of dread.

   • Jack's first sighting of her produces in him a dread fascination: “And then Gran opened the door leading from the parlour, and stood there like the portrait of an old old lady, stood there immovable just looking on, like some ghost.
3. 3

   An obsessive interest in something that evokes feelings of fear or that hurts the person…

   An obsessive interest in something that evokes feelings of fear or that hurts the person with the interest.

   • In Cincinnati, in Boston, wherever he has been, he has secured the sympathy of the best portion of the community, and has[]been the means of rescuing thousands from the dread fascinations of this modern Circe.
   • We can also see that one element in crime fiction always remains the same: our dread fascination for the unknown, for the darker side of human nature, and the everpresent phantom of danger.

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