infatuate means to inspire with unreasoning love, attachment or enthusiasm. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
infatuate is pronounced /ɪnˈfætjuˌ(w)eɪt/.
Why “infatuate” is a great word
INFATUATE — [Verb] To inspire with a foolish or unreasoning passion, especially of romantic love. From Latin infatuātus, past participle of infatuare, from in- (into, upon) + fatuus (foolish, silly). First attested in English circa 1555. Unlike adore, which implies deep, enduring reverence, or enamor, which suggests a charming affection, to infatuate is to induce a transient obsession that actively voids sound judgment. It is the vertiginous focus on a stranger across a crowded room, the compulsive re-reading of a three-line text, the feverish composition of a message written and deleted a dozen times—a sweet delirium where the heart, a gullible organ, mistakes its own frantic beating for destiny.
verb
- To inspire with unreasoning love, attachment or enthusiasm.“If the mine was a “developed” one, and had no pay ore to show (and of course it hadn’t), we praised the tunnel; said it was one of the most infatuating tunnels in the land; driveled and driveled about the tunnel till we ran entirely out of ecstasies—but never said a word about the rock.”
- To make foolish.“[…] wee beggard our selues by hearkning after false riches, and infatuated our selues by hearkning after false knowledge.”
adj
- Infatuated, foolishly attracted to someone.“He is infatuate about her.”
- Foolish, lacking good judgement.“Helas I lamente the dull abuſyd brayne
The enfatuate fantaſies the wytles wylfulnes
Of on and hothyr at me that haue dyſdayne”
noun
- Infatuated person.“1771, Elizabeth Griffith, The History of Lady Barton, London: T. Davies & T. Cadell, Volume I, Letter 26, p. 183,
[…] she has a number of relations here, brothers and cousins, by the dozen; but they are all priests, and I am apprehensive that some of these infatuates may persuade her to quit me, and lock her up in a convent […]”