If you say that something is a magnet or is like a magnet, you mean that people are very attracted by it and want to go to it or look at it.
Prospect Park, with its vast lake, is a magnet for all health freaks. [+ for]
Lower interest rates are acting like a magnet, dragging consumers back to the shops.
2. countable noun
A magnet is a piece of iron or other material which attracts iron towards it.
...a fridge magnet.
magnet in British English
(ˈmæɡnɪt)
noun
1.
a body that can attract certain substances, such as iron or steel, as a result of a magnetic field; a piece of ferromagnetic substance
See also electromagnet
2.
a person or thing that exerts a great attraction
Word origin
C15: via Latin from Greek magnēs, shortened from ho Magnēs lithos the Magnesian stone. See magnesia
magnet in American English
(ˈmægnɪt)
noun
1.
any piece of certain kinds of material, as iron, that has the property of attracting like material: this property may be permanent or temporarily induced
see electromagnet
2.
a person or thing that attracts
Word origin
ME magnete < OFr < L magnes (gen. magnetis) < Gr Magnētis (lithos), (stone) of Magnesia
Examples of 'magnet' in a sentence
magnet
Her father ran a newsagent and sold toys and fridge magnets on the streets with her mother.
Times, Sunday Times (2017)
It's just a fridge magnet.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
When you want something'It's like a magnet.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
He is best known for being a complete babe magnet.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
Which makes me feel like a punter magnet rather than an object of terror.
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
You can cut it out and fix it to the fridge with a magnet if you like.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
Their bodies were like magnets to each other.
Paige, Frances The Glasgow Girls (1994)
The earth behaves like a vast magnet.
Richard Fortey THE EARTH: An Intimate History (2004)
Spend your collected rings on stuff like magnets and shields.
The Sun (2012)
Sundance has become a magnet for the wealthy and is one of the highlights of the social calendar.
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
We seem to be drawn like magnets to one another and we've slept together twice more.
The Sun (2006)
You gave that person a fridge magnet - why?
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
With the space it saves, it can do more fridge magnets.
Times, Sunday Times (2014)
Thereafter, he seemed to become a magnet for bad news.
Times, Sunday Times (2012)
We were checking out his fridge magnets through the window when the angry colonel arrived and the soldiers were taken off to jail.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
But why is it that our seaside towns have become a magnet for youngsters who seem to have no beds to go to?
The Sun (2008)
Another kind of magnet, the permanent magnet, requires no current.
Schneider, Hermann & Schneider, Leo The Harper Dictionary of Science in Everyday Language (1988)
Then the criminals use a magnet strip card writer - also bought on the internet - to clone your cards.
The Sun (2006)
It must be a babe magnet, I say.
Times, Sunday Times (2006)
I'm told you're a babe magnet.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
In other languages
magnet
British English: magnet /ˈmæɡnɪt/ NOUN
A magnet is a piece of iron which attracts iron or steel towards it.
The children used a magnet to find objects made of iron.