EC'STASY, n. [Gr. to stand.] 1. Primarily, a fixed state; a trance; a state in which the mind is arrested and fixed, or as we say, lost; a state in which the functions of the senses are suspended by the contemplation of some extraordinary or supernatural object.Whether what we call ecstasy be not dreaming with our eyes open, I leave to be examined.2. Excessive joy; rapture; a degree of delight that arrests the whole mind; as a pleasing ecstasy; the ecstasy of love; joy may rise to ecstasy.3. Enthusiasm; excessive elevation and absorption of mind; extreme delight.He on the tender grassWould sit and hearken even to ecstasy.4. Excessive grief or anxiety. [Not used.]5. Madness; distraction. [Not used.]6. In medicine, a species of catalepsy, when the person remembers, after the paroxysm is over, the ideas he had during the fit.EC'STASY, v.t. To fill with rapture or enthusiasm.
|