Brewer's: Spellbinders

Orators who hold their audience spellbound. The word came into use in America in the presidential election of 1888.

“The Hon, Daniel Dougherty says: `The proudest day of his life was when he beheld his name among the ‘spell-binders’ who held the audience in rapture with their eloquence.' ” —Liberty Review July 7th, 1894, p. 13.

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