a. and sb. [ad. Gr. ἐκστατικός, f. stem ἐκστα-. See ECSTASY sb. and -IC.]

1

  A.  adj.

2

  1.  Of the nature of trance, catalepsy, mystical absorption, stupor, or frenzy (see ECSTASY sb. 1, 2, 3); accompanied by or producing these conditions. Of persons: Subject to experiences of this kind.

3

c. 1630.  Milton, Passion, 42. There doth my soul … sit In pensive trance … and ecstatic fit.

4

1697.  C. Leslie, Snake in Grass (ed. 2), 286. The Quakers … during these Extatick years … were not in a Solid Condition.

5

1718.  Pope, Eloisa, 339. In trance extatic may thy pangs be drowned.

6

1814.  Scott, Ld. of Isles, II. xxx. Convulsions of extatic trance.

7

1821.  Joanna Baillie, Metr. Leg., Colum., xxvii. 27. The banded Priest’s ecstatic art.

8

1856.  R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (ed. 4), I. 77. In the ecstatic state, individuality (which is so much imperfection), memory, time, space, phenomenal contradictions, and logical distinctions all vanish.

9

  2.  Of the nature of ecstasy or exalted feeling; characterized by, or producing intense emotion (now chiefly pleasurable emotion). Of persons: Subject to rapturous emotion. (See ECSTASY sb. 4.)

10

1664.  H. More, Apology, 503. Carried quite away in an Ecstatick fit of Love and Joy and transporting Admiration.

11

1749.  Fielding, Tom Jones, XVIII. xi. Mrs. Miller … burst forth into the most ecstatic thanksgivings to Heaven.

12

1762.  Falconer, Shipwr., I. 260. He quivers in extatic pain.

13

1813.  H. & J. Smith, Horace in Lond., 42. Thy Newgate thefts impart ecstatic pleasure.

14

1870.  Disraeli, Lothair, I. vii. 47. She had thrown herself in ecstatic idolatry at the feet of the hero of Caprera.

15

1878.  Tait & Stewart, Unseen Univ., i. § 27. 45. Minds of a visionary and ecstatic nature.

16

  3.  absol. quasi-sb. rare.

17

1748.  Richardson, Clarissa (1811), III. ii. 25. The man indeed at times is all upon the ecstatic; once of his phrases.

18

  B.  sb. 1. One who is subject to fits of ecstasy (see ECSTASY sb. 2, 3).

19

1659.  Gauden, Tears of Ch., 201 (D.). Old Hereticks and idle Ecstaticks.

20

1879.  Baring-Gould, Germany, II. 190. A swarm of apostles, ecstatics, sibyls, spread over the country.

21

18[?].  Proctor, in Cycl. Sc., I. 433. The childhood and youth of an ecstatic.

22

  2.  pl. Sarcastically used for: Utterances in a state of ecstasy or transport; transports.

23

1819.  Byron, Juan, III. xi. Dante’s more abstruse ecstatics Meant to personify the mathematics.

24

1865.  Sat. Rev., 11 Nov., 616. Ecstatics again, might be spared.

25