exaltation

plural exaltations

1. countableuncountableThe act of exalting or raising high; also, the state of being exalted; elevation.

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   The irregular and undisciplined wars which it was her business to describe were naturally far more prolific of extraordinary incidents, unexpected turns of fortune, and striking displays of individual talent, and vice and virtue, than the more solemn movements of national hostility, where everything is in a great measure provided and foreseen, and where the inflexible subordination of rank, and the severe exactions of a limited duty, not only take away the inducement, but the opportunity, for those exaltations of personal feeling and adventure which produce the most lively interest, and lead to the most animating results.

   2023, The Most Influential Women in History

2. countableuncountableA feeling of happiness so intense as to be carried away by it; joyful pride bordering on ecstasy, often resulting from acclaim or triumph.
3. countableuncountableThe refinement or subtilization of a body, or the increasing of its virtue or principal property.
4. countableuncountableastrologyThat placement of a planet in the zodiac in which it is deemed to exert its strongest influence.

   He often stood there in a muse until dusk fell, and then darkness, while once in a while the moon, ‘in her exaltation’ as the astrologers say, rose to remind him that such worldly musings meant nothing to the hostile universe without.

   1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 483

5. MormonismcountableuncountableApotheosis; becoming a god in the highest degree of glory after death.

   Those who obtain exaltation will gain all power and thus themselves be omnipotent […]

   1958, Bruce R. McConkie, “Omnipotence”, in Mormon Doctrine, 1st edition, page 492

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   Mormon commentators have taken various position about whether people who have died could move from a lower degree of glory—what non-Mormons might call salvation—to a higher one and eventually reach exaltation and become gods.

   2019, Thomas G. Alexander, Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith, →ISBN, page 209

6. collectivecountableuncommonuncountableA flock of doves, larks or skylarks.

   Outside, an exaltation of doves pierces the crystal sky.

   2002, Luisa Lang Owen, Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered, Texas A&M University Press, page 218

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   An 'exaltation' of skylarks, who will always sing you wet through, as the Watcher says, were warbling against the storm in an upper air and gave me a sudden illusion of sunshine.

   1931, William Makepeace Thackeray, editor, The Cornhill Magazine, Smith, Elder and Company, page 332

   Wood Larks are never seen in anything like such large flocks as Sky - Larks. Now and then, however, a few of the former mingle with an "exaltation of the latter."

   1914, John Walpole-Bond, Field-studies of Some Rarer British Birds, Witherby & Company, page 10

   "Oh, I, well, I too fell into error, for I frittered away my morning in stalking yonder exaltation of larks, thinking they were dunlin, and in doing so disturbed the only sord of mallards on the whole marsh."

   1893 September 27, The Bazaar, the Exchange and Mart, London, page 800, column 3

   In a sense, the editorial cartoons were correct when they suggested that an exaltation of larks can fly under the influence into an aspect of vulturous behavior.

   1989, Ronald K. Siegel, Intoxication: The Universal Drive for Mind-Altering Substances, Park Street Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 192

   “I'd like to think of my father being lifted to God in an exaltation of larks.”

   2005, Lucille Bellucci, Journey from Shanghai, iUniverse, published 2005, →ISBN, page 83

   Synonyms: exultation

7. archaiccountableuncountablemedicineAn abnormal sense of personal well-being, power, or importance, observed as a symptom in various forms of insanity.