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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
Becca Rothfeld, New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2026
The oil painting depicts a towering John the Baptist pouring water on the head of an even larger, almost shimmering Jesus; in the background, God, angels and cherubs look down from heaven in an ecstatic frenzy.
—Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 17 Apr. 2026
James and his partner, Katrina Engle, welcomed a son in July 2021, and Potts was ecstatic.
—Emy Lacroix, PEOPLE, 16 Apr. 2026
Thousands of people fill the streets that surround it in lit, ecstatic union.
—Julissa James, Los Angeles Times, 14 Apr. 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 26 Apr. 2026.
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