Mystique is a quality of mystery and fascination that makes someone or something seem intriguing and special. When a person has mystique, there's something compelling about them that's hard to pin down or explain. They might seem quietly confident, or like they know secrets others don't, or have talents and experiences that spark curiosity.

Famous explorers often had mystique because of the remote places they'd traveled and the dangers they'd faced. A new student arriving at school might have mystique simply because nobody knows much about them yet. The French Foreign Legion has mystique partly because it operates in distant places and doesn't reveal much about its activities.

Mystique depends partly on not revealing everything. A magician who explains all their tricks loses mystique. A rare animal glimpsed briefly in a forest has more mystique than one sitting in a zoo enclosure. When scientists finally got clear photographs of giant squids in the deep ocean, these creatures lost some of their mystique, even though they remained fascinating.