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🗓️ 9 February 2025
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 9, 2025 is:
ecstatic • \ek-STAT-ik\ • adjective
Someone described as ecstatic is very happy or excited; the person feels or shows ecstasy—that is, rapturous delight.
// Greta and Sam were ecstatic when their daughter called to tell them that they were soon going to be grandparents.
Examples:
“... through reading, through reporting, I begin to comprehend a truth. That moment of comprehension is ecstatic. Writing and rewriting is the attempt to communicate not just a truth but the ecstasy of a truth. It is not enough for me to convince the reader of my argument; I want them to feel that same private joy that I feel alone.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message, 2024
Did you know?
If you feel like “a hot air balloon that could go to space” or, perhaps, “like a room without a roof,” you might—with all due respect to Pharrell Williams—be not just happy but ecstatic. In other words: euphoric, over the moon, positively brimming with joy or excitement. Ecstatic has been used in English since the late 1500s, arriving (via Medieval Latin) from the Greek adjective ekstatikós meaning, among other things “out of one’s senses.” Ekstatikós, in turn, was formed in part from eksta-, the stem of such verbs as existánai, “to displace or confound,” and exístasthai “to be astonished or lose consciousness.” That seems an appropriate history for a word that can describe someone who is nearly out of their mind with intense emotion. Eksta-, it should be noted, also contributed to the Greek noun ékstasis, meaning “astonishment” or “trance,” which led to ecstasy (the English word, of course, not the universal feeling).
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0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day podcast for February 9th. |
0:11.4 | Today's word is ecstatic, spelled E-C-S-T-A-T-I-C. |
0:17.2 | Ecstatic is an adjective. |
0:18.9 | Someone described as ecstatic is very happy or excited. The person feels or shows ecstasy, that is rapturous delight. Here's the word used in a sentence from the message by Tanaheesy Coates. Through reading, through reporting, I begin to comprehend a truth. That moment of comprehension is ecstatic. |
0:38.3 | Writing and rewriting is the attempt to communicate not just a truth, but the ecstasy of a truth. |
0:44.3 | It is not enough for me to convince the reader of my argument. I want them to feel that same private joy that I feel alone. |
0:52.3 | If you feel like a hot air balloon that could go to space or perhaps |
0:56.4 | like a room without a roof, you might with all due respect to Farrell Williams, not just be |
1:02.7 | happy, but ecstatic. In other words, euphoric over the moon, positively brimming with joy or excitement. |
1:10.0 | Ecstatic has been used in English since the late 1500s, arriving via medieval Latin from the Greek |
1:16.0 | adjective, ecstatikos, meaning among other things, out of one's senses. |
1:21.7 | Ecstaticos, in turn, was formed in part from exsta, the stem of such as existanae, meaning to displace or confound, |
1:30.5 | and existast thai, meaning to be astonished or lose consciousness. |
1:35.0 | That seems an appropriate history for a word that can describe someone who is nearly out of their |
1:39.7 | mind with intense emotion. |
1:42.2 | Exta, it should be noted, also contributed to the Greek noun, |
1:45.6 | ecstasis, meaning astonishment or trance, |
1:48.7 | which led to the word ecstasy. |
1:50.9 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sakalowsky. |
1:55.8 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today |
1:58.0 | for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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