Ecstasy

Forms: 4–5 exstasie, -cye, 6–9 extasie, -y, ecstacy, exstacy, -ie, 6–8 exstasy, 6 extascie, 7 extase, ecs-, estasie, 8, 9 ectasy, ecstasie, 7–9 extacy, 6– ecstasy. See also ECSTASIS. [a. OF. extasie, (after words in -sie, ad. L. -sia) f. med.L. extasis, a. Gr. ἔκστασις, f. ἐκστα- stem of ἐξιστάναι to put out of place (in phrase ἐξιστάναι φρενῶν ‘to drive a person out of his wits’), f. ἐκ out + ἱστάναι to place. The mod. Eng. spelling shows direct recourse to Gr. The Fr. extase is ad. med.L. or Gr.

  The classical senses of ἔκστασις are ‘insanity’ and ‘bewilderment’; but in late Gr. the etymological meaning received another application, viz., ‘withdrawal of the soul from the body, mystic or prophetic trance’; hence in later medical writers the word is used for trance, etc., generally. Both the classical and post-classical senses came into the mod. langs., and in the present fig. uses they seem to be blended.]

  1.  The state of being ‘beside oneself,’ thrown into a frenzy or a stupor, with anxiety, astonishment, fear or passion.

1382.  Wyclif, Acts iii. 10. Thei weren fulfillid with wondryng, and exstasie, that is, leesyng of mynde of resoun and lettyng of tunge.

a. 1400[?].  Chester Pl., II. (1847), 113. I knowe … That you be in greate exstacye.

c. 1592.  Marlowe, Jew of Malta, I. ii. 217. Our words will but increase his ecstasy.

1605.  Shaks., Macb., III. ii. 19. To lye In restlesse extasie.

1634.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 201. With a great and sudden Army he entered Iackatra.… In which extasie the English Factors fled to Bantam.

1834.  Disraeli, Rev. Epick, I. ii. 2. The crouching beasts Cling to the earth in pallid ecstasy.

  2.  Pathol. † a. By early writers applied vaguely, or with conflicting attempts at precise definition, to all morbid states characterized by unconsciousness, as swoon, trance, catalepsy, etc.

1598.  Marston, Pygmal., V. 124. Beames … shoote from out the fairenes of her eye: At which he stands as in an extasie.

1600.  Holland, Livy, XLIIII. xv. 1179. The principall person of the embassage … fell downe flat before them in a swoune and extasie.

1604.  Shaks., Oth., IV. i. 80. I … layd good scuses vpon your extasie [Stage direction to line 40: Falls into a trance].

1647.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., III. (1702), I. 160. The Ministers of the State, and Judges of the Law, like men in an Extasy, surprized and amazed with several Apparitions, had no Speech or Motion.

  b.  In modern scientific use. (See quot.)

1866.  A. Flint, Princ. Med. (1880), 840. Ecstasy. In this condition, the mind, absorbed in a dominant idea, becomes insensible to surrounding objects.

1882.  Quain, Dict. Med., s.v. The term ecstasy has been applied to certain morbid states of the nervous system, in which the attention is occupied exclusively by one idea, and the cerebral control is in part withdrawn from the lower cerebral and certain reflex functions. These latter centres may be in a condition of inertia, or of insubordinate activity, presenting various disordered phenomena, for the most part motor.

  3.  a. Used by mystical writers as the technical name for the state of rapture in which the body was supposed to become incapable of sensation, while the soul was engaged in the contemplation of divine things. Now only Hist. or allusive.

a. 1652.  J. Smith, Sel. Disc., iv. 107. In such sober kind of ecstacies did Plotinus find his own soul separated from his body.

1656.  H. More, Antid. Ath., III. ix. (1712), 171. The Emigration of humane Souls from the bodie by Ecstasy.

1690.  Locke, Hum. Und., II. xix. § 1 (1695), 119. Whether that which we call Extasie, be not dreaming with the Eyes open, I leave to be examined.

1696.  Aubrey, Misc. (1721), 181/2. Things seen in an Extacy are more certain than those we behold in dreams.

1842.  Emerson, Transcend., Wks. 1875, II. 282. He [the Transcendentalist] believes in inspiration and in ecstasy.

1856.  R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (ed. 4), I. III. ii. 81. This is Ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness.

1879.  Lefevre, Philos., i. 29. The Chaldæans and the Semites let loose on the West these wanton rites, the intoxication of the senses, and by a natural transposition, mystic ecstasy.

  b.  The state of trance supposed to be a concomitant of prophetic inspiration; hence, Poetic frenzy or rapture. Now with some notion of 4.

1670.  Milton, Hist. Eng., II. Wks. (1851), 59. Certaine women in a kind of ecstasie foretold of calamities to come.

1682.  Burnet, Rights Princes, iv. 125. Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans … being in an Extasy, saw him in Hell.

1751.  Gray, Elegy, xii. Hands … waked to ecstasy the living lyre. Ibid. (1755), Progr. Poesy (R.). He that rode sublime Upon the seraph wings of ecstacy.

1813.  Scott, Trierm., III. xxxv. He leant upon a harp, in mood Of minstrel ecstasy.

  4.  An exalted state of feeling that engrosses the mind to the exclusion of thought; rapture, transport. Now chiefly, Intense or rapturous delight: the expressions ecstasy of woe, sorrow, despair, etc., still occur, but are usually felt as transferred. Phrase, To be in, dissolve (trans. and intr.), be thrown into ecstasies, etc.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 162. After they come downe agayn to themselfe from suche excessyue eleuacyon or extasy.

1583.  Stubbes, Anat. Abus. (1877), Ep. Ded. p. vii. In extasie of despaire.

1601.  Weever, Mirr. Mart., D iv b. In a sorrow-sighing extasie, Henry tooke leaue.

1620.  Melton, Astrolog., 4. This extasie of my admiration was broken off by the occasion of a noyse.

1632.  Milton, Il Penser., 165. As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies.

a. 1704.  T. Brown, Pleas. Love, Wks. 1730, I. 112.

1722.  De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 26. All the little boyish tricks that I played in the ecstacy of my joy and satisfaction.

1820.  Scott, Monast., I. 182. The ecstacy of the Monk’s terror could be endured no longer.

1831.  Macaulay, Moore’s Byron, Ess. (1854), I. 165. What somebody calls the ‘ecstasy of woe.’ Ibid. (1848), Hist. Eng., I. 627. The crowd was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that [etc.].

1866.  Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 19. There had been no ecstasy, no gladness even.

1879.  M. Arnold, Fr. Critic on Milton, Ess. 242. When he hears it he is in ecstasies.

  b.  An outburst, a tumultuous utterance (of feeling, etc.). Obs.

1695.  Ld. Preston, Boeth., I. 32. The Fury and Extasies of a giddy and passionate Multitude.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., IV. 1013. Shrill extasies of joy declare The fav’ring goddess present to the pray’r.

  5.  Comb.

1850.  Mrs. Browning, Poems, II. 169. Ha, a poet! know him by The ecstasy-dilated eye.