Meanings
- pluralplural onlyJoyous elation, joyfulness, joyousness.
Apart from yachting and the cross-Channel steamer it was her first experience of being at sea and she was in high spirits.
2000, Mary S. Lovell, A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 4151 more example
They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups. The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits.
1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9Synonyms: jolliness, jollity, blitheness, blithesomeness, cheerfulness, cheeriness, contentness, contentedness · Antonyms: low spirits, blueness, tristesse, mirthlessness, blues, crestfallenness, dejection, depression
Synonyms & antonyms
nounJoyous elation, joyfulness, joyousness.
More synonyms by meaning
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Translations
Finnish hyvä mieliala
- hyvä mielialajoyfulness
Greek κέφι
- κέφι (kéfi)joyfulness
Hungarian jókedv
- jókedvjoyfulness
Irish mórtas
- mórtasjoyfulness
Polish dobry humor
- dobry humorjoyfulness
Scottish Gaelic air ghleus, gleusta
- air ghleusjoyfulness
- gleustajoyfulness
Cite this entry
high spirits. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/high%20spirits
“high spirits.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/high%20spirits. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “high spirits,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/high%20spirits.
Source: high spirits on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.