rapture
[rap-cher]
- ecstatic joy or delight; joyful ecstasy.
- Often raptures. an utterance or expression of ecstatic delight.
- the carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence.
- the Rapture, Theology. the experience, anticipated by some fundamentalist Christians, of meeting Christ midway in the air upon his return to earth.
- Archaic. the act of carrying off.
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- to enrapture.
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Origin of rapture
Synonyms
See more synonyms for rapture on Thesaurus.com1. bliss, beatitude; transport, exaltation.
Synonym study
1. See ecstasy.
Antonyms
1. misery.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for rapture
Contemporary Examples
The book was optioned to HBO in 2011, around the time evangelist Harold Camping claimed The Rapture would occur—on May 21, 2011.
From ‘Lost’ to The Rapture: Creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta on HBO’s ‘The Leftovers’Marlow Stern
June 24, 2014
We can feel his sad cadences and the rapture of language in the Gettysburg Address.
There is a phrase for the foreigners' rapture: mal d'afrique.
Susan Minot on Africa, Joseph Kony, and the Limits of Writing About LoveLea Carpenter
February 10, 2014
Most recently, Harold Camping went bust predicting that the Rapture would take place on May 21, 2011.
Rapture was self-transcending, which led to quiescence, tranquility, and catharsis.
Historical Examples
And the music seized us and swept us away with its rapture and its mystery.
The Bacillus of BeautyHarriet Stark
Fanny uttered a low and suppressed cry of delight and rapture.
Night and Morning, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
Mr Pecksniff looked up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands in rapture.
Life And Adventures Of Martin ChuzzlewitCharles Dickens
"Thank you, thank you with all my heart," Marie stammered amidst her rapture.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
Then, with dreamy eyes, he relapsed into a state of rapture.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
rapture
- the state of mind resulting from feelings of high emotion; joyous ecstasy
- (often plural) an expression of ecstatic joy
- the act of transporting a person from one sphere of existence to another, esp from earth to heaven
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- (tr) archaic, or literary to entrance; enrapture
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Word Origin
C17: from Medieval Latin raptūra, from Latin raptus rapt 1
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for rapture
n.
c.1600, "act of carrying off," from Middle French rapture, from Medieval Latin raptura "seizure, rape, kidnapping," from Latin raptus "a carrying off, abduction, snatching away; rape" (see rapt). Earliest attested use in English is of women and in 17c. it sometimes meant rape (v.), which word is a cognate of this. Sense of "spiritual ecstasy, state of mental transport" first recorded c.1600 (raptures).
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v.
1630s, from rapture (n.). Related: Raptured; rapturing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper