ecstasy
See also: Ecstasy
English
Etymology
From Old French estaise (“ecstasy, rapture”), from Latin ecstasis, from Ancient Greek ἔκστασις (ékstasis), from ἐξίστημι (exístēmi, “I displace”), from ἐκ (ek, “out”) and ἵστημι (hístēmi, “I stand”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɛk.stə.si/
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
ecstasy (countable and uncountable, plural ecstasies)

Ecstasy (MDMA) tablets
- Intense pleasure.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1,
- 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.
- 1634, John Milton, Comus, lines 623-5,
- He loved me well, and oft would beg me sing; / Which when I did, he on the tender grass / Would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy,
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1,
- A state of emotion so intense that a person is carried beyond rational thought and self-control.
- 1938, George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Chapter 14,
- They were thrown into ecstasies of suspicion by finding that we possessed a French translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf.
- 1938, George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Chapter 14,
- A trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.
- 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, Act IV, Scene I,
- What! are you dreaming, Son! with Eyes cast upwards / Like a mad Prophet in an Ecstasy?
- 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, Act IV, Scene I,
- (obsolete) Violent emotion or distraction of mind; excessive grief from anxiety; insanity; madness.
- c. 1590, Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Act I,
- Come, let us leave him; in his ireful mood / Our words will but increase his ecstasy.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1,
- And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, / That suck'd the honey of his music vows, / Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, / Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; / That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth / Blasted with ecstasy.
- c. 1590, Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Act I,
- (slang) The drug MDMA, a synthetic entactogen of the methylenedioxyphenethylamine family, especially in a tablet form.
- (medicine, dated) A state in which sensibility, voluntary motion, and (largely) mental power are suspended; the body is erect and inflexible; but the pulse and breathing are not affected.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Mayne to this entry?)
Antonyms
- (intense pleasure): agony
Related terms
Translations
intense pleasure
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intense emotion
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trance associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation
drug
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Verb
ecstasy (third-person singular simple present ecstasies, present participle ecstasying, simple past and past participle ecstasied)
- (intransitive) To experience intense pleasure.
- (transitive) To cause intense pleasure in.
- 2011, Richard Francis Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, →ISBN:
- 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.
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Dutch
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɛk.stə.si/, /ˈɛk.sti.si/
- Hyphenation: ec‧sta‧sy
Portuguese
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