Something that draws people or things toward it, like a magnet pulls metal or a popular theme park pulls visitors.
From Latin 'attractus' (past participle of 'attrahere': ad- 'to' + trahere 'to draw'). The suffix '-or' indicates an agent or thing that performs the action. This evolved from physical attraction to also mean places or things that naturally interest people.
In chaos theory, attractors are invisible mathematical shapes that moving systems spiral toward—like water going down a drain always follows the same invisible pattern. It's wild that the same word describes both what draws kids to amusement parks and what draws planets to orbit stars!
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