trance

¹ American  

[trans, trahns] / træns, trɑns /

noun

1. a half-conscious state, seemingly between sleeping and waking, in which ability to function voluntarily may be suspended.

2. a dazed or bewildered condition.

3. a state of complete mental absorption or deep musing.

4. an unconscious, cataleptic, or hypnotic condition.

5. Spiritualism. a temporary state in which a medium, with suspension of personal consciousness, is controlled by an intelligence from without and used as a means of communication, as from the dead.

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verb (used with object)

tranced, trancing

1. to put in a trance; stupefy.

2. to entrance; enrapture.

trance ² American  

[trahns] / trɑns /

Or transe

noun

1. a passageway, as a hallway, alley, or the like.

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verb (used without object)

tranced, trancing

1. to move or walk rapidly or briskly.

trance British  

/ trɑːns /

noun

1. a hypnotic state resembling sleep

2. any mental state in which a person is unaware or apparently unaware of the environment, characterized by loss of voluntary movement, rigidity, and lack of sensitivity to external stimuli

3. a dazed or stunned state

4. a state of ecstasy or mystic absorption so intense as to cause a temporary loss of consciousness at the earthly level

5. spiritualism a state in which a medium, having temporarily lost consciousness, can supposedly be controlled by an intelligence from without as a means of communication with the dead

6. a type of electronic dance music with repetitive rhythms, aiming at a hypnotic effect

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verb

1. (tr) to put into or as into a trance

Other Word Forms

• trancelike
  adjective
• trancedly
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of trance¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English traunce, trauns(e), “state of extreme dread, swoon, dazed state,” from Old French transe “passage (from life to death),” derivative of transir “to go across, pass over,” from Latin trānsīre, equivalent to trāns- trans- + īre “to go”

Origin of trance²

First recorded in 1540–50; origin uncertain; perhaps shortening of transit ( def. )

Explanation

If your eyes are open but you're not fully awake and in control, you may be in trance. Someone might have hypnotized you, or just a glimpse of your latest heartthrob might send you into a trance. Trances don’t have to be magic or mysterious — when you avoid facing your problems head-on, you’re creating your own trance. President Obama once said, speaking of America's decades-long dependence on foreign oil, "We cannot keep going from shock when prices go up, to trance when they go back down." He meant that when prices rise, we all complain, but when they fall, we forget we ever had a problem and refuse to change a thing.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

trance tranced trancing

All this competence puts us in a strange state — a suspenseful trance — in which you feel on edge while also relaxing into the idea that the characters have things under control.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026

I must have been in a trance as I clicked through dozens of clips—fix-it videos, rescue-dog accounts, road-rage incidents, segments of “Justified” episodes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026

"I think I was walking around in like a stunned, surprised trance if you like for about three weeks."

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2026

Notably, this trance is one of the few instances in the film when Lilian slips back into English.

From Salon ● Jan. 18, 2026

When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert.

From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker

The scenes are ordinary enough — intersections in East London with people going about their normal business — but there’s a tranced stillness about them: a feeling of being in some kind of fugue state.

From New York Times ● Jul. 24, 2018

And so, through some perverse compatibility – those marriages that last for ages because of an insatiable and shared appetite for bickering – they settled into a tranced deadlock.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 24, 2010

They were the Four Horsemen of America's polo apocalypse and had just left their English opponents tranced and helpless a second time before wondrous revelations of speed, strength, skill with mount and mallet.

From Time Magazine Archive

There, as Frank told the story, she “lays out worksheets, points to one example, then another, then a third. She stands back, with eyes tranced behind her rimless glasses.”

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

Is he fooled by her hair, Is he tranced by her eyes, That he draweth him near, That he speaketh him wise?

From Poems by Stuart, Muriel

Boredom was there as a resource for daydreaming, trancing out.”

From Salon ● Jan. 19, 2013

The FBI uses all the sleuthing techniques of the computer age, yet its most sophisticated device is Will's brain, trancing itself into the psycho's psyche.

From Time Magazine Archive

Neither suggestion satisfied; for the mean lodge was suddenly filled with a great calm, and my whole being was flooded and thrilled with the trancing ecstasy of an ethereal presence.

From Lords of the North by Laut, Agnes C. (Agnes Christina)

Is the poet's song but jingling rhyme?—a play of words in trancing measure?

From The Hand but Not the Heart or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring by Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)

Ever, oh ever thus they sing, But to our soul's dull ear belongs Seldom the trancing sense To list the universal worshiping, Thrill with the glorious theme, and drink its eloquence.

From Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 by Various

Related Words

• coma
• rapture
• reverie
• stupor
• unconsciousness