Did you know?
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
Sam Goldner, Pitchfork, 30 Mar. 2026
Ilia Malinin might have just gone public with his new girlfriend, and his fans aren't too ecstatic about the relationship.
—Tyler Erzberger, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Mar. 2026
My mother, though, was ecstatic.
—Zayd Ayers Dohrn, New Yorker, 28 Mar. 2026
And what Hartzman's go-for-broke screams in Milwaukee showed was that Wednesday has been able to meet the moment with a thrilling live show that matches the ecstatic accolades for their latest albums - while crucially staying true to themselves.
—Piet Levy, jsonline.com, 28 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 7 Apr. 2026.
Copy Citation
