Definition of "ecstasy" []

• Intense joy or delight. (noun)
• A state of emotion so intense that one is carried beyond rational thought and self-control: an ecstasy of rage. (noun)
• The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation. (noun)
• Slang MDMA. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Marijuana treats us to an awareness of a simultaneity of sensations, a sort of meta-pleasure, which is not surprising, given the roots of the term 'ecstasy,' as Rich Doyle writes: "Ecstasy" comes etymologically from the experience of "being beside ourselves.""
• "The astonishing breadth of Herzog's filmmaking conveys the humanist's sense of wonder at the world - what he describes as the "ecstasy of observation.""
• "Medical writers of the era even discussed a fourth clinical condition, marked by immobility, which they termed ecstasy, but this was not a state that might lead to premature burial."