Definition of "exhilarate" [ex•hil•a•rate]

• To cause to feel happily refreshed and energetic; elate: We were exhilarated by the cool, pine-scented air. (verb-transitive)
• To invigorate; stimulate: bold designs that exhilarate the viewer's imagination. (verb-transitive)

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.

• "The west's threats must exhilarate the young bloods of the Revolutionary Guard and depress the opposition."
• "They also still exhilarate him: Of course you get scared."
• "Lead actor Andreas Lust (also seen in "Revanche," another chilly Austrian drama in which the moral calculus tallies up a psychological cliffhanger) portrays a kind of instinctual animal — or ascetic sociopath, take your pick — whose disciplined urges exhilarate, then implode."