EXHILARATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does exhilarate mean? 

• EXHILARATE (verb)
  The verb EXHILARATE has 1 sense:

1. fill with sublime emotion

  Familiarity information: EXHILARATE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXHILARATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they exhilarate    ... he / she / it exhilarates   
Past simple: exhilarated   
Past participle: exhilarated   
-ing form: exhilarating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fill with sublime emotion

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

beatify; exalt; exhilarate; inebriate; thrill; tickle pink

Context example:

He was inebriated by his phenomenal success

Hypernyms (to "exhilarate" is one way to...):

elate; intoxicate; lift up; pick up; uplift (fill with high spirits; fill with optimism)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence examples:

The good news will exhilarate her
The performance is likely to exhilarate Sue

Derivation:

exhilaration (the feeling of lively and cheerful joy)

 Context examples 

This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to the acquiring the art of language.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Then he seemed quite inspired, though the burial customs of the ancients, to which the conversation had strayed, might not be considered an exhilarating topic.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

To throw one’s whole strength and weight on the oars and to feel the boat checked in its forward lunge by the heavy drag behind, was not exactly exhilarating.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

With regard to herself, it was now a matter of unconcern whether she went to town or not, and when she saw her mother so thoroughly pleased with the plan, and her sister exhilarated by it in look, voice, and manner, restored to all her usual animation, and elevated to more than her usual gaiety, she could not be dissatisfied with the cause, and would hardly allow herself to distrust the consequence.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Five years after Jo's wedding, one of these fruitful festivals occurred, a mellow October day, when the air was full of an exhilarating freshness which made the spirits rise and the blood dance healthily in the veins.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)