A joyous exaltation so intense it lifts one out of oneself.
A joyous exaltation so intense it lifts one out of oneself — a swept-away delight, often spiritual in character.
Pairs with ecstasy as a trance-like, transported exaltation, but rapture is specifically blissful and positive, where ecstasy can attach to any strong emotion. Its root sense is being “seized and carried off,” giving a passive, swept-away quality (“speechless rapture”). Strongly literary and religious in resonance (the spirit exalted to divine knowledge; “the Rapture” of end-times theology). More agitated and transported than serene bliss; inward absorption rather than the outward cheering of jubilation.
A transport of overwhelming, blissful emotion.
The core literary sense (from c. 1600); root meaning “a carrying off.”
The end-time catching-up of the faithful into heaven, in some Christian theologies.
This sense dates to 1852, after J. N. Darby's reading of 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
c. 1600, originally “act of carrying off,” from Latin raptus “a carrying off, abduction” (from rapere “to seize, carry off”). The figurative “spiritual ecstasy, transport” is recorded by c. 1600.
From a literal, even violent “seizure / carrying off” to “spiritual ecstasy” and “transport of exalted feeling” by the 1610s. “The Rapture” as the end-time lifting of the faithful dates to 1852. No newer slang shift is recorded.