enrapt

comparative more enrapt · superlative most enrapt

1. archaicpoeticfascinated, enraptured

   She sits enrapt as Shakespeare turns the kaleidoscope of life for her, or stands enthralled by Victor Hugo's picture of the human soul.

   1918, Francis B. Pearson, The Vitalized School

   3 more examples

   Come Hector, come, go back, / Thy wife hath dreamt, thy mother hath had viſions, / Caſſandra doth foreſee, and I my ſelfe, / Am like a prophet ſuddenly enrapt, / To tell thee that this day is ominous: / Therefore come back.

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. […] (First Quarto), London: […] G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], signatures L, verso – L2, recto

   The tune carried among the lanes and dwellings of the village, and naked feet pad-padded quickly up over dust and the grass; the audience distributed itself within and without the head-man's hut, and listened enrapt; and the head-man felt the glow of satisfaction that a London hostess feels when she has hired for money the most popular drawing-room entertainer of the day, and her guests condescend to enjoy, and not merely to exhibit themselves as blases.

   1898, Cutcliffe Hyne, A Master of Fortune

   Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the mean while, wast blending with my thought,-- Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy,-- Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing, there, As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

   1904, Bliss Carman, The World's Best Poetry Volume IV.

   Synonyms: rapturous