rapturous
Americanadjective
-
full of, feeling, or manifesting ecstatic joy or delight.
-
characterized by, attended with, or expressive of such rapture.
rapturous praise.
adjective
Other Word Forms
- rapturously adverb
- rapturousness noun
- unrapturous adjective
- unrapturously adverb
- unrapturousness noun
Etymology
Origin of rapturous
Explanation
If you're blissfully happy, you're rapturous. You could describe your purring cat rolling around in catnip as rapturous. The adjective rapturous is great for describing someone who's delighted, like the rapturous excitement of a room full of teenagers at their favorite pop star's concert, or the rapturous look on a child's face when she opens her birthday present and finds exactly what she had hoped for. The root word of rapturous is the Latin raptus or "a carrying off," and until the mid-1600s, that's exactly what rapture was used to mean.
Vocabulary lists containing rapturous
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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"The Lady, or the Tiger?" by Frank R. Stockton
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Little Women
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
She was met with rapturous crowds and Eisenhower was wooed.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 27, 2026
With the rapturous cacophony this scene brings to mind, it is surprising to learn that Payawal created all of her pieces in silence.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 13, 2026
Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is a soaring, achingly romantic tribute to the rapturous feeling of reading a great book, tearing through every page in a single afternoon.
From Salon • Feb. 14, 2026
Western Digital and Seagate trade at P/Es in the low 20s, still a slight discount to the market, despite forecasts for rapturous earnings growth.
From Barron's • Jan. 2, 2026
International journalists rushed to their Teletypes and flooded the wires, and by the next morning newspapers around the world carried rapturous headlines.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.