ecstasy

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Intense pleasure.

   This is the very ecstasy of love, / Whose violent property fordoes itself / And leads the will to desperate undertakings / As oft as any passion under heaven / That does afflict our natures.

2. 2
   noun

   A state of emotion so intense that a person is carried beyond rational thought and self-control.

   an ecstasy of remorse

3. 3
   noun

   A trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.

   What! are you dreaming, Son! with Eyes cast upwards / Like a mad Prophet in an Ecstasy?

4. 4
   noun

   Violent emotion or distraction of mind; excessive grief from anxiety; insanity; madness.

   Come, let us leave him; in his ireful mood / Our words will but increase his ecstasy.

5. 5
   noun

   A state in which sensibility, voluntary motion, and (largely) mental power are suspended, and the body is erect and inflexible.

   The instant I drew out my case of instruments, the lady roused herself from her ecstasy, and has never had a similar attack.

6. 6
   verb

   To cause intense pleasure in.

   Ali Agha jumped up, seized the visitor by the shoulder, compelled him to sit down, and, ecstasied by the old man's horror at the scene, filled a tumbler, and with the usual grotesque grimaces insisted upon his drinking it.

7. 7
   noun

   street names for methylenedioxymethamphetamine

8. 8
   noun

   a state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion

Etymology

From Old French estaise (“ecstasy, rapture”), from Latin ecstasis, from Ancient Greek ἔκστασις (ékstasis), from ἐξίστημι (exístēmi, “to displace”), from ἐκ (ek, “out”) and ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to stand”).