means The physical force by which certain materials attract or repel each other, arising from the motion and alignment of electric charges; figuratively, a person's powerful, almost irresistible charm.

from From Magnesia, a region in ancient Thessaly (in what is now Greece) whose hills yielded a curious stone — the lodestone — that tugged at iron. Greek speakers called it the 'Magnesian stone,' lithos Magnetis, and the place lent its name to the mystery. The word travelled through Latin magnes and into English by way of the sciences. The same Greek region, by the way, is the likely ancestor of 'manganese' and 'magnesium' too — a single dusty district quietly seeding three corners of the periodic table.