Ecstasy

Alternative forms

• extasy

Origin

From Old French estaise ("ecstasy, rapture"), from Late Latin extasis, from Ancient Greek ἔκστασις, from ἐξίστημι (eksistēmi, "I displace"), from ἐκ (ek, "out") and ἵστημι (histēmi, "I stand").

Full definition of ecstasy

Noun

1. Intense pleasure.
• ShakespeareThis is the very ecstasy of love.
• MiltonHe on the tender grass
  Would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy.
2. A state of emotion so intense that a person is carried beyond rational thought and self-control.
• Drydenlike a mad prophet in an ecstasy
3. A trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.
4. (obsolete) Violent emotion or distraction of mind; excessive grief from anxiety; insanity; madness.
• ShakespeareThat unmatched form and feature of blown youth
  Blasted with ecstasy.
• MarloweOur words will but increase his ecstasy.
5. (slang) The drug MDMA, a synthetic entactogen of the phenethylamine family.
6. (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.

Synonyms

• (the drug) MDMA mali; Modern Vernacular E, XTC, X, mali, thizz

Antonyms

• (intense pleasure) agony

Related terms

• ecstatic