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If you feel like “a hot air balloon that could go to space” or, perhaps, “like a room without a roof,” you might—with all due respect to Pharrell Williams—be not just happy but ecstatic. In other words: euphoric, over the moon, positively brimming with joy or excitement. Ecstatic has been used in English since the late 1500s, arriving (via Medieval Latin) from the Greek adjective ekstatikós meaning, among other things “out of one’s senses.” Ekstatikós, in turn, was formed in part from eksta-, the stem of such verbs as existánai, “to displace or confound,” and exístasthai “to be astonished or lose consciousness.” That seems an appropriate history for a word that can describe someone who is nearly out of their mind with intense emotion. Eksta-, it should be noted, also contributed to the Greek noun ékstasis, meaning “astonishment” or “trance,” which led to ecstasy (the English word, of course, not the universal feeling).
Synonyms of ecstatic
Examples of ecstatic in a Sentence
Barbara Ehrenreich, Civilization, June/July 2000
… in dietary terms we are veritable troglodytes (which, speaking personally, is all right by me). I think this explains a lot, not least my expanding sense of dismay as the waiter bombarded us with ecstatic descriptions of roulades, ratatouilles, empanadas, langostinos … and goodness knows what else.
—Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999
He was ecstatic when he heard that he was going to be a father.
a football player who was ecstatic upon receiving a full athletic scholarship to the college of his choice
James Rainey, Los Angeles Times, 17 Mar. 2026
My husband, although always glad to see me, just isn’t an ecstatic wiggles kind of guy.
—Inga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Mar. 2026
What that looks like in practice is a collection of 10 songs that range from glum balladry to cautiously ecstatic nu-disco, created with a high-class list of collaborators, including Air’s Nicolas Godin (the album was primarily recorded at Godin’s Paris studio) and Étienne de Crécy.
—Molly Mary O’Brien, Pitchfork, 14 Mar. 2026
Ahead of the 2025 season in the National Women’s Soccer League, the Kansas City Current organization was ecstatic about beginning its second year of competition at historic CPKC Stadium.
—Pj Green, Kansas City Star, 14 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ecstatic
Cite this Entry
“Ecstatic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ecstatic. Accessed 21 Mar. 2026.
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