exhilarating

adjective

ex·​hil·​a·​rat·​ing ig-ˈzi-lə-ˌrā-tiŋ 

: causing strong feelings of happy excitement and elation : thrilling

an exhilarating experience

… an exhilarating ride that allows participants to catch an aerial view like they've never seen before.

—Kathryn M. Roy

… I would like to convey the sense of flight as it was almost at the very beginning of itself, when everything about it was miraculous and dangerous and exhilarating.

—James Dickey

… an exhilarating career full of deals sealed at three-martini lunches.

—Andrea Cooper

exhilaratingly

ig-ˈzi-lə-ˌrā-tiŋ-lē 

adverb

an exhilaratingly funny performance

Synonyms of exhilarating

• exciting
• breathtaking
• thrilling
• interesting
• intriguing

Examples of exhilarating in a Sentence

no recording can capture the exhilarating feeling of being at a live rock concert

Recent Examples on the Web

The result is an often exhilarating, often disturbing and always poignant tale of an artist and adventurer who lived to challenge the limits of what humans could do. —Stuart Miller, Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr. 2026

This new view was both unnerving and exhilarating. —Rebecca Boyle, The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2026

Especially for someone whose entire adult life has been immersed in the adrenaline-infusion of coaching — from its exhilarating highs and anguishing lows to simply always being in the middle of so much. —Kansas City Star, 1 Apr. 2026

This may be one of the low points in UConn’s March Madness History, though it’ll always be remembered as one of the most exhilarating upsets in the history of the tournament. —Kels Dayton, Hartford Courant, 26 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1634, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for exhilarating

• accelerating
• accentuating
• accommodating
• accumulating
• adjudicating
• administrating
• affiliating
• agglutinating
• alienating
• alleviating
• amalgamating
• ameliorating