- present participle of exhilarate.
exhilarating
Britishadjective
Other Word Forms
Explanation
Something exhilarating is so exciting it makes you a little giddy. "Snowboarding that black-diamond trail was exhilarating!" Zipping through the snow is certainly exhilarating, but ski bunnies and snowboarders might not choose this fancy adjective first. They might just yell, "Woohoo!" It's always been a fun-loving word; its Latin roots mean "gladden, cheer." A ride on a glass elevator with a cute vampire could be exhilarating, and so could a surprise party, or a ride on an old roller coaster. It can be so refreshing, you can't exhale after something exhilarating happens.
Vocabulary lists containing exhilarating
The Giver
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, List 2
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The Joy Luck Club
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Alan Still completed the skydive for Rowleys Centre for the Community in Cranleigh, Surrey, describing the experience as "absolutely exhilarating".
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
With Esa-Pekka Salonen as this year’s music director, the festival saw an exhilarating return to its essence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
But it is true that bad boys can be exhilarating until they crash and burn—like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
The opera begins with three ceremonial chords in the orchestra that signal a brief, sober introduction quickly undercut by an exhilarating fast-forwarding overture.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
After all, she’d been in the spotlight before, and while it had been exhilarating in some ways, it had been a nightmare in others.
From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
