n.
- a feeling of intense pleasure or joy.
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(raptures)
the expression of intense pleasure or enthusiasm.
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(the Rapture)
N. Amer. (according to some millenarian teaching) the transporting of believers to heaven at the second coming of Christ.
Phrase
- rapture of the deep
informal nitrogen narcosis.
Etymology
C16 (in the sense ‘seizing and carrying off’): from obs. Fr., or from med. L. raptura ‘seizing’, partly influenced by rapt.