▪ I. ecstasy
(ˈɛkstəsɪ)
Forms: 4–5 exstasie, -cye, 6–9 extasie, -y, ecstacy, exstacy, -ie, 6–8 exstasy, 6 extascie, 7 extase, ecs-, estasie, 8, 9 ectasy, ecstasie, 7–9 extacy, 6– ecstasy. See also ecstasis.
[a. OF. extasie, (after words in -sie, ad. L. -sia) f. med.L. extasis, a. Gr. ἔκστασις, f. ἐκστα- stem of ἐξιστάναι to put out of place (in phrase ἐξιστάναι ϕρενῶν ‘to drive a person out of his wits’), f. ἐκ out + ἱστάναι to place. The mod. Eng. spelling shows direct recourse to Gr. The Fr. extase is ad. med.L. or Gr.
The classical senses of ἔκστασις are ‘insanity’ and ‘bewilderment’; but in late Gr. the etymological meaning received another application, viz., ‘withdrawal of the soul from the body, mystic or prophetic trance’; hence in later medical writers the word is used for trance, etc., generally. Both the classical and post-classical senses came into the mod. langs., and in the present fig. uses they seem to be blended.]
1. The state of being ‘beside oneself’, thrown into a frenzy or a stupor, with anxiety, astonishment, fear, or passion.
| 1382 Wyclif Acts iii. 10 Thei weren fulfillid with wondryng, and exstasie, that is, leesyng of mynde of resoun and lettyng of tunge. ? a 1400 Chester Pl. ii. (1847) 113 I knowe.. That you be in greate exstacye. 1592 Marlowe Jew Malta i. ii. 217 Our words will but increase his ecstasy. 1605 Shakes. Macb. iii. ii. 19 To lye In restlesse extasie. 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 201 With a great and sudden Army he entered..In which extasie the English Factours fled to Bantam. 1834 Disraeli Rev. Epick i. ii, The crouching beasts Cling to the earth in pallid ecstasy. |
2. Pathol. † a. By early writers applied vaguely, or with conflicting attempts at precise definition, to all morbid states characterized by unconsciousness, as swoon, trance, catalepsy, etc.
| 1598 Marston Pygmal. v. 124 Beames..shoote from out the fairenes of her eye: At which he stands as in an extasie. 1600 Holland Livy xliiii. xv. 179 The principall person of the embassage..fell downe flat before them in a swoune and extasie. 1604 Shakes. Oth. iv. i. 80, I..layd good scuses vpon your extasie [Stage direction to line 40: Falls into a trance]. 1647 Clarendon Hist. Reb. iii. (1702) I. 160 The Ministers of the State..like men in an Extasy..had no Speech or Motion. |
b. In modern scientific use. (See quot.)
| 1866 A. Flint Princ. Med. (1880) 840 Ecstasy. In this condition, the mind, absorbed in a dominant idea, becomes insensible to surrounding objects. 1882 Quain Dict. Med., s.v., The term ecstasy has been applied to certain morbid states of the nervous system, in which the attention is occupied exclusively by one idea, and the cerebral control is in part withdrawn from the lower cerebral and certain reflex functions. These latter centres may be in a condition of inertia, or of insubordinate activity, presenting various disordered phenomena, for the most part motor. |
3. a. Used by mystical writers as the technical name for the state of rapture in which the body was supposed to become incapable of sensation, while the soul was engaged in the contemplation of divine things. Now only Hist. or allusive.
| a 1652 J. Smith Sel. Disc. iv. 107 In such sober kind of ecstacies did Plotinus find his own soul separated from his body. 1656 H. More Antid. Ath. iii. ix. (1712) 171 The Emigration of humane Souls from the bodie by Ecstasy. 1690 Locke Hum. Und. ii. xix. (1695) 119 Whether that which we call Extasie, be not dreaming with the Eyes open, I leave to be examined. 1696 Aubrey Misc. (1721) 181/2 Things seen in an Extacy are more certain than those we behold in dreams. 1842 Emerson Transcend. Wks. 1875 II. 282 He [the Transcendentalist] believes in inspiration and in ecstasy. 1856 R. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. iii. ii. 65 Ecstasy..is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness. 1879 Lefevre Philos. i. 29 The Chaldæans and the Semites let loose on the West these wanton rites, the intoxication of the senses, and by a natural transposition, mystic ecstasy. |
b. The state of trance supposed to be a concomitant of prophetic inspiration; hence, Poetic frenzy or rapture. Now with some notion of 4.
| 1670 Milton Hist. Eng. ii. Wks. (1851) 59 Certaine women in a kind of ecstasie foretold of calamities to come. 1682 Burnet Rights Princes iv. 125 Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans..being in an Extasy, saw him in Hell. 1751 Gray Elegy xii, Hands..waked to ecstasy the living lyre. 1755 ― Progr. Poesy (R.), He that rode sublime Upon the seraph wings of ecstacy. 1813 Scott Trierm. iii. xxxv, He leant upon a harp, in mood Of minstrel ecstasy. |
4. An exalted state of feeling which engrosses the mind to the exclusion of thought; rapture, transport. Now chiefly, Intense or rapturous delight: the expressions ecstasy of woe, sorrow, despair, etc., still occur, but are usually felt as transferred. Phrase, to be in ecstasies, dissolve (trans. and intr.), be thrown into ecstasies, etc.
| 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 162 After they come downe agayn to themselfe from suche excessyue eleuacyon or extasy. 1583 Stubbes Anat. Abus. (1877) Ep. Ded. 6 In extasie of despaire. 1601 Weever Mirr. Mart. D iv b, In a sorrow-sighing extasie, Henry tooke leaue. 1620 Melton Astrolog. 4 This extasie of my admiration was broken off by the occasion of a noyse. 1632 Milton Penseroso 165 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies. a 1704 T. Brown Pleas. Love Wks. 1730 I. 112 In exstasies I wou'd dissolving lie. 1723 De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 26 Boyish tricks that I played in the ecstacy of my joy. 1820 Scott Monast. v, The ecstasy of the monk's terror. 1831 Macaulay Moore's Byron, Ess. (1854) I. 165 What somebody calls the ‘ecstasy of woe’. 1848 ― Hist. Eng. I. 627 The crowd was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that, etc. 1866 Geo. Eliot F. Holt (1868) 19 There had been no ecstasy, no gladness even. 1879 M. Arnold Fr. Critic on Milton Ess. 242 When he hears it he is in ecstasies. |
b. An outburst, a tumultuous utterance (of feeling, etc.) Obs.
| 1695 Ld. Preston Boeth. i. 32 The Fury and Extasies of a giddy and passionate Multitude. 1725 Pope Odyss. iv. 1013 Shrill extasies of joy declare The fav'ring goddess present to the pray'r. |
5. Comb.
| 1850 Mrs. Browning Poems II. 169 A poet! know him by The ecstasy-dilated eye. |
Sense 5 in Dict. becomes 6. Add: 5. Freq. with capital initial. A name for the synthetic hallucinogen 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Abbrev. E: see *E III. c. colloq. (orig. U.S.).
| 1985 Los Angeles Times 29 Mar. v. 8/3 You'll be hearing and reading more about yet another new drug. This one, when in the lab, is called MDMA. Humanistic psychologists who advocate it believe it a powerful therapeutic tool, bringing about ‘peacefulness and an ability to trust’. On the street, its name is ‘ecstasy’ or ‘Adam’. 1987 Times 14 May 2/8 Police impounded {pstlg}10,000-worth of a drug known as ‘ecstasy’ yesterday..the first time it has been found in Britain. 1988 Sunday Times 30 Oct. c4/4 Acid House (the music) and Ecstasy (the drug) became inextricably bound together and the fans turned to it. |
▪ II. ˈecstasy, v.
[f. the n. Cf. ecstasize v.]
† 1. trans. To throw into a state of frenzy or stupor. Only in pass. Obs.
| 1627 Feltham Resolves ii. i. Wks. (1677) 159 They us'd to be so extasi'd..as..to tear their garments. 1646 G. Daniel Poems Wks. (1878) I. 12 My Blood was Corral, and my Breath was Ice, Extasied from all Sence, to thinke, etc. 1670 Conclave wherein Clem. VIII elected Pope 2 They were extasied with distractions. |
† 2. intr. To behave as in an ecstasy. Obs.
| 1636 W. Denny in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 15 With seeming seeing, yet not seeing eyes..he extasies. |
3. trans. To raise to a high state of feeling; to fill with transport; now esp. to delight intensely, enrapture. Chiefly in pass.; see ecstasied.
| 1624 Heywood Captives v. i. in Bullen O. Pl. IV, Thou with these woords hast extasyde my sowle. 1631 ― Fair M. of West i. ii. i. Wks. 1874 II. 281, I cannot but wonder why any fortune should make a man ecstasied. 1660 Character Italy 89 She would extasy a foreiner with the sight of her stately fabricks. 1864 Neale Seaton. Poems 251 Breathless with haste and ecstasied with joy. 1874 T. Hardy Madding Crowd II. xx. 232 The crowd was again ecstasied. |