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

Also, once your celestial ruler, Venus, joins the sun in this area of your chart on the 24th, matters of love and romance are suddenly liberating and exhilarating. —Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 5 Dec. 2025

Its suffocating Puritanic culture is suddenly rocked by an exhilarating theater movement fostering the likes of Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus, but also by an underground of intrigue and dissent that’s hatching schemes to blow up Parliament and extinguish royal rule. —Peter Bart, Deadline, 4 Dec. 2025

But northern cold has its own personality—sharp, exhilarating, and entirely manageable with the right gear. —Marc Telio, Travel + Leisure, 30 Nov. 2025

The wins this year have been ugly, improbable and exhilarating. —Nick Coltrain, Denver Post, 30 Nov. 2025

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