to prepossess any one in favour of some person or thing that does not deserve it, so far as that he cannot easily be disabused.—The word infatuate comes from the Latin fatuus "fool;" of fari, "to speak out," which is borrowed from the Greek φάω, whence φάων, which signifies the same with ναῦς in Latin, or prophet in English; and the reason is, because their prophets or priests used to be seized with a kind of madness or folly, when they began to make their predictions, or deliver oracles.

The Romans called those persons infatuati, who fancied they had seen visions, or imagined the god Faunus, whom they called Fatues, had appeared to them. This word is more generally applied by the moderns to persons who are what the vulgar call bewitched, or under some some peculiar destiny which it appears impossible for them to fulfill.