Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The power or quality of pleasing or delighting; appeal.
  • noun A quality that pleases or attracts; a delightful characteristic.
  • noun A small ornament, such as one worn on a bracelet.
  • noun An item worn for its supposed magical benefit, as in warding off evil; an amulet.
  • noun An action or formula thought to have magical power.
  • noun A quantum property of subatomic particles that is conserved in electromagnetic and strong interactions but may not be conserved in weak interactions that cause the decay of particles containing charm quarks.
  • noun The quantum number that represents the charm property, equal to the difference between the number of charm quarks and the number of charm antiquarks.
  • intransitive verb To delight or fascinate.
  • intransitive verb To induce by means of strong personal attractiveness.
  • intransitive verb To cast or seem to cast a spell on; bewitch.
  • intransitive verb To be alluring or pleasing.
  • intransitive verb To function as an amulet or charm.
  • intransitive verb To use magic spells.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A melody; a song.
  • noun Anything believed to possess some occult or supernatural power, such as an amulet, a spell, or some mystic observance or act.
  • noun Hence A trinket, such as a locket, seal, etc., worn especially on a watch-guard.
  • noun An irresistible power to please and attract, or something which possesses this power; fascination; allurement; attraction.
  • noun Synonyms Spell, enchantment, witchery, magic.
  • To subdue, control, or bind, as if by incantation or magical influence; soothe, allay, or appease.
  • To fortify or make invulnerable with charms.
  • To give exquisite pleasure to; fascinate; enchant.
  • To affect by or as if by magic or supernatural influences: as, to charm a serpent out of his hole or into a stupor; to charm away one's grief; to charm the wind into silence.
  • To play upon; produce musical sounds from.
  • = Syn. 1, 2, and Fascinate, etc. (see enchant), delight, transport, bewitch, ravish, enrapture, captivate.
  • To produce the effect of a charm; work with magic power; act as a charm or spell.
  • To give delight; be highly pleasing: as, a melody that could charm more than any other.
  • To give forth musical sounds.
  • noun The confused low murmuring of a flock of birds; chirm.
  • noun In hawking, a company: said of goldfinches.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Obs. & R. To make music upon; to tune.
  • transitive verb To subdue, control, or summon by incantation or supernatural influence; to affect by magic.
  • transitive verb To subdue or overcome by some secret power, or by that which gives pleasure; to allay; to soothe.
  • transitive verb To attract irresistibly; to delight exceedingly; to enchant; to fascinate.
  • transitive verb To protect with, or make invulnerable by, spells, charms, or supernatural influences.
  • noun obsolete A melody; a song.
  • noun A word or combination of words sung or spoken in the practice of magic; a magical combination of words, characters, etc.; an incantation.
  • noun That which exerts an irresistible power to please and attract; that which fascinates; any alluring quality.
  • noun Anything worn for its supposed efficacy to the wearer in averting ill or securing good fortune.
  • noun Any small decorative object worn on the person, as a seal, a key, a silver whistle, or the like. Bunches of charms are often worn at the watch chain.
  • noun (Physics) a property of certain quarks which may take the value of +1, -1 or 0.
  • intransitive verb To use magic arts or occult power; to make use of charms.
  • intransitive verb To act as, or produce the effect of, a charm; to please greatly; to be fascinating.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To make a musical sound.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An object, act or words believed to have magic power.
  • noun The ability to persuade, delight or arouse admiration; often constructed in the plural.
  • noun physics A quantum number of hadrons determined by the quantity of charm quarks & antiquarks.
  • noun A small trinket on a bracelet or chain, etc.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English charme, magic spell, from Old French, from Latin carmen, incantation; see kan- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English charme (chant, magic spell)< Old French< Latin carmen (song, incantation)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variant of chirm, perhaps after Etymology 1, above.

Support

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Examples

  • WHATEVER!! hehe well I'm gunna * charm so ron can't read* PRETEND TO * end charm* sleep. .so bye! love you all ... some more then others ...

    katebell Diary Entry katebell 2003

  • It sent me to the hospital, got me addicted, and now i have to come back sometimes just to make sure im okay. * charm so gin can't read*They also suggested me to go into drug rehab, but I don't think i need it, really. * end charm*

    katebell Diary Entry katebell 2003

  • That we broke up. * charm so nobody can read* you don't know how hard/weird that is to say. * end charm* but anyways, heres what it said.

    katebell Diary Entry katebell 2003

  • And no matter how odd my request seemed, * charm so Lupin can't read* I didn't tell him why I wanted one, just that I wanted one * ends charm* he let me have one!

    katebell Diary Entry katebell 2003

  • * charm so only people who know can read* I went to see Dr. Robinson again (ooc: that is if he's still around, jackie or hay, if hes not, let me know lol. thanks bunches) I can't believe that its almost been a year. my minds been elsewhere today*end charm** charm so only alyssa & em can read* Its almost been a year. god DAMNIT.

    katebell Diary Entry katebell 2003

  • IV. xii.25 (227,3) this grave charm] I know not by what authority, nor for what reason, _this_ grave _charm_, which the first, the only original copy exhibits, has been through all the modern editors changed to _this_ gay _charm_.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • Barbie has been around for 50 years; although she has never been given a decisive storyline for her life that would translate into a concrete idea for a movie (however cheesy it might wind up being) part of her charm is the fact that she has been and done everything.

    The Barbie movie: Plastic fantastic or dollpocalypse now? | EW.com 2009

  • And they had things like talking about the fact that Kerry -- John Kerry is trying to fill what they called the charm gap by picking John Edwards.

    CNN Transcript Jul 6, 2004 2004

  • Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who, though born to millions, kept fresh that perfume of womanliness which we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he.

    Impressions of a War Correspondent George Lynch

  • Her greatest charm was precisely what we call charm -- a sweetly willing, pliant disposition, an air of gay seriousness, such as a child has, and a mood which could run swiftly, at the touch on some secret spring, from the ripple of laughter to the urgency of tears.

    The Fool Errant Maurice Hewlett 1892

  • The system — known as coupled histone tail for autoinhibition release of methyltransferase (CHARM) — changes the ‘epigenome’, a collection of chemical tags that are attached to DNA and affect gene activity.

    ‘Epigenome editor’ silences gene that causes deadly brain disorders Gemma Conroy 2024

Comments

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  • theres a word for a shy player... charming

    December 20, 2006

  • a company of birds, a flock, expression used by Milton

    _A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs, by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillips, 1881

    February 26, 2008