Dictionary

rapture en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈɹæpt͡ʃɚ/ (General-American)
• /ˈɹæpt͡ʃəː/ (Australia, Received-Pronunciation)
• [ˈɹʷɛ̞pt͡ʃɘː] (New-Zealand)
• [ˈɹʷæpt͡ʃɚ] ~ [ˈɹʷæpt͡ʃɹ̩] (General-American)
• /ˈɹɛptʃɘː/ (New-Zealand)
• (US) audio
• [ˈɹʷæpt͡ʃəː] (Australia, Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French rapture, from Latin raptūra, future active participle of rapiō (“snatch, carry off”).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement.
   • Sunderland’s right-back, Santiago Vergini, inadvertently gave Southampton the lead by lashing the ball into his own net in the 12th minute, and that signalled the start of a barmy encounter that had home fans in raptures and Sunderland in tatters. 2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in The Guardian:
   • My heart filled with rapture then, and it fills now as it has each of the countless times I have recalled those dear words, as it shall fill always until death has claimed me. I may never see her again; she may not know how I love her--she may question, she may doubt; but always true and steady, and warm with the fires of love my heart beats for the girl who said that night: "I love you beyond all conception." 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
   • Music, when thus applied, raises noble hints in the mind of the hearer, and fills it with great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture[…] 1712 June 24 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, June 14, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 407; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume IV, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
   • They went into raptures about the meal they'd had.
2. (alt-of, countable, uncountable, with the) Alternative letter-case form of Rapture.
   alt of Rapture
   • In the last week, believers have linked Charlie Kirk’s assassination to the rapture theory: some on TikTok have suggested that Kirk, who in death became a martyr for Christian nationalists and whose memorial service veered into religious revival territory, could be resurrected during the rapture. 2025 September 23, Alaina Demopoulos, “‘It’s prime time for rapture talk’: TikTok gets its first ‘world is ending’ moment”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
3. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) The act of kidnapping or abducting, especially the forceful carrying off of a woman.
4. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) Rape; ravishment; sexual violation.
5. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) The act of carrying, conveying, transporting or sweeping along by force of movement; the force of such movement; the fact of being carried along by such movement.
   • That 'gainst a rock, or flat, her keel did dash / With headlong rapture. 1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC:
   • With the rapture of great winds to blow / About earth's shaken coignes. 1888, James Russell Lowell, Agassiz, 6.1.21:
6. (countable, uncountable) A spasm; a fit; a syncope; delirium.
   • Your pratling nurse Into a rapture lets her baby cry c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

Forms

Deriveds

rapturize · raptureless · rapturist · rapturesome · rapturise · rapturous · enrapture · rapture of the deep

Relateds

rapt

Translations (41)

enm traunce (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · hu csodálat (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Hingerissenheit (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Überschwänglichkeit (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · es embeleso (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · da henrykkelse (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · is algleymi (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · sv hänryckning (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · bg възторг (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Ekstase (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · el έκσταση (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Rausch (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · es arrobamiento (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · fi hurmos (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · is sæluvíma (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Begeisterung (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Verzückung (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · bg екстаз (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · es arrobo (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · is hrifning (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Taumel (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · fr ravissement (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Entzücken (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · tr coşku (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · oc rabiment (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · fi hurmio (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · es arrebatamiento (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Krampfanfall (spasm, seizure) · es arrebato (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · ar طَرَب (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · es embelesamiento (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · nb henrykkelse (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · hu elragadtatás (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · sv hänförelse (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · ru восто́рг (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · nl verrukking fvervoering fextase (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · de Trance (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · ru упое́ние (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · ar نَشْوَة (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · ota وجدان (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement) · hu rajongás (extreme pleasure, happiness or excitement)

rapture en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /ˈɹæpt͡ʃɚ/ (General-American)
• /ˈɹæpt͡ʃəː/ (Australia, Received-Pronunciation)
• [ˈɹʷɛ̞pt͡ʃɘː] (New-Zealand)
• [ˈɹʷæpt͡ʃɚ] ~ [ˈɹʷæpt͡ʃɹ̩] (General-American)
• /ˈɹɛptʃɘː/ (New-Zealand)
• (US) audio
• [ˈɹʷæpt͡ʃəː] (Australia, Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French rapture, from Latin raptūra, future active participle of rapiō (“snatch, carry off”).

Meanings

1. (dated, transitive) To cause to experience great happiness or excitement.
   • She raptured me in summer by giving me Fitzgerald's flawed and gorgeous masterpiece, the book that held his tortured heart. 2012, The Books They Gave Me: True Stories of Life, Love, and Lit, page 138:
2. (dated, intransitive) To experience great happiness or excitement.
3. (transitive) To take (someone) off the Earth and bring (them) to Heaven as part of the Rapture.
   • The third person raptured by God into heaven was Elijah […] 2010, Gerald Mizejewski, Jerimiah Asher, Charting the Supernatural Judgements of Planet Earth, page 233:
   • “Praise the Lord, he's been raptured.” Good grief. “I don't think so, Mrs. Farris. 'Course, I'm Episcopalian, and I'm pretty sure we don't get raptured. But, Baptists get raptured, don't they?” 2011, Lexi George, Demon Hunting in Dixie, →ISBN:
   • These fiction books told the story of some church people who were raptured but focused on the people who were not raptured. 2007, Leon L. Combs, A Search For Reality, page 46:
   • "If she's raptured," Ellen said to them on the fifth night after Marylee's disappearance, as they sat on the roof of the building on their old beanbags and rusting garden furniture hauled up from the Museum, "if that's what happened to her, then […]" 2001, Allan Appel, Club Revelation: A Novel, page 320:
4. (intransitive, rare) To take part in the Rapture; to leave Earth and go to Heaven as part of the Rapture.
5. (uncommon) To state (something, transitive) or talk (intransitive) rapturously.
   • And then the flowers! May-day indeed. Hester had been in Switzerland at the end of June, years on years before, and often had she raptured to Effie about the day's ride, in which they collected a hundred varieties of flowers, most of them new to them. 1885, Edward Everett Hale, G.T.T.; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Pullman, page 158:
   • They're called angora with wonderfully long, soft fleece,” she raptured on about her first venture. 2003, Beverly Adam, Irish Magic, page 121:
   • Pulling her leggings down over unshaven legs, she raptured "I'm dry!" to her audience. 2003, Jessica Peers, Asparagus Dreams, page 75:

Forms