Definition of "mesmeric"

Even were he to write a lie, he could not meet her and maintain it, with her eyes upon his face: they had uttermost power over him—power as of life and death,—those fine grey sweet mesmeric eyes !

1890, Lafcadio Hearn, “Karma”, in Karma and Other Stories and Essays, London: George G. Harrap and Co., published 1921, Chapter VI, page 36

Podson's globular stare assured any woman that the bargain was sacred. It was solemn, intent, opaque; it was also slightly mesmeric, which is to say that it gave out everything and took in nothing.

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, page 152

Then suddenly he remembered something Differ had often talked about, what he called the Suggestive Power of the Written Word, the making, by means of arrangements of word and phrase, of mesmeric passes as it were before the reader's mind in order to convince—that was Differ's word, Convince!—Convince Against All Reason.

1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., published 1943, page 125

She was a firm believer in mesmeric healing, from which she claimed to have benefited greatly, and she was also very much involved in the spiritualist experiments of those days […]

1990, A.S. Byatt, chapter 6, in Possession: A Romance, New York: Random House, page 113