hypnotize vs mesmerize

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Please these two verbs seem the same in meaning and I cannot afford to workout the differences but consider the following for me which one best fit in:

  1. He was hypnotised/mesmerised by the black hair and the white face of the woman.
  2. He was mesmerised/hypnotised by the man on the television. Please you can educate me more about how to use this confusing words. Thanks
2

Hi, to me, “mesmerized” has a more negative connotation, like you may be led to believe something that may not be true and may even be detrimental to you.

3
  1. The game seems to have mesmerized people from all walks of life.
  2. He was hypnotized by her beauty and went behind her.
    Are these examples OK?
4

These are fine, but to me, switching hypnotized and mesmerized between these two sentences seems to fit the connotations better - the first seems like an innocent way to spend time, while the second implies to me that the woman may have an ulterior motive.

5

So should I always consider mesmerized to have negative connotation?

  1. …From all walks of life (as constructed by alifathima). Does this mean people of different race. Please confirm
6

‘Mesmerised’ doesn’t have the same negative connotations for me as it does for Luschen, so I would say no, it is not always negative.

‘From all walks of life’

7

I agree with Beeesneees, sometimes words have different meanings to different people. Just to make sure I wasn’t completely off base though, I did a Google search and came up with this interesting description from someone’s advertising school project for a new brand of coffee called “Mesmerize”. Of course, I don’t know if you should get your definitions from advertising campaigns, and the numerous grammatical errors may call the whole thing into question. :slight_smile:

mesmerize
2009, Jan–
– branding, packaging, advertising,
For this project we were asked to work with a partner and come up with a brand, a package and an advertisement for a word. The verb charm means to induce into an action by using ones charms, eg: snake charm: control as by magic. We wanted to put a darker twist on it so we chose the word mesmerize which means to hold the attention to the exclusion of all else or so as to tranfixx them ie attract strongly. Attract strongly led us to the idea of connecting things and transfix and attract attention to, sort of led us to think about objects in everyday life that have this effect on people/ guilty pleasures, such as chocolate and coffee. Even though we know we’re “being deceived” if you will, that really these items aren’t good for our health we still enjoy these items, therefore backing up our choice of mesmerize as a brand name, the same as charm but with negative connotation. Because these items will sell regardlesss of packaging we didnt really think about making different packaging just intergrating the chocolate and coffee into one box. And at the end of the day coffee sells for coffees sake, ie starbucks and costa. You buy into the brand. This also represents our brand values of high end and elitism, which links back to the logo being semi illegible, it doesn’t matter what the brand is called as long as it is recognisable from a distance.

8

Also, it is interesting that mesmerize is one of the very rare words named for a specific person: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer

9

Interesting!
Before I knew only these:
Quizzling, boghart

Maybe we should start a list? :slight_smile: