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Definition of "hypnotic" []

  • Of or relating to hypnosis. (adjective)
  • Of or relating to hypnotism. (adjective)
  • Inducing or tending to induce sleep; soporific: read the bedtime story in a hypnotic voice. (adjective)
  • A person who is hypnotized. (noun)
  • A person who can be hypnotized. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "hypnotic" in a sentence
  • "The world, it seems to me, abounds in people who are little more than blank sheets of paper, on which a strong hand may transcribe what it will – hysteric subjects, the doctors would call them; hypnotic subjects others would say; really the line that divides the hysteric condition from the hypnotic is a very hazy one."
  • "I believe Colonel de Rochas was correct when he asserted that under the compulsion of his will he sent the girl Josephine, while she was in hypnotic trance, back through the eighteen years she had lived, back through the silence and the dark ere she had been born, back to the light of a previous living when she was a bed-ridden old man, the ex-artilleryman, Jean-Claude Bourdon."
  • "It's why a lot of good people -- including members of my own family -- have become disgusted with the Republican party and are distressed to see it being turned over to a bunch of ignorant Jesus-shouters who are one step away from wearing brown shirts and armbands and parading their hatred and holier-than-thou platitudes in hypnotic goose-stepping rhythm down Biscayne Boulevard."