rapt

comparative more rapt · comparative uncommon rapter · superlative most rapt · superlative uncommon raptest

1. archaicnot comparableSnatched, taken away; abducted.

   And through the Greeks and Ilians they rapt / The whirring chariot.

   [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC

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   From Oxford I was rapt by my nephew, Sir Edmund Francis Bacon, to Redgrove.

   1626, Henry Wotton, letter to Nicholas Pey

2. not comparableLifted up into the air; transported into heaven.
3. comparableVery interested, involved in something, absorbed, transfixed; fascinated or engrossed.

   The children watched in rapt attention as the magician produced object after object from his hat.

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   1851-2, George W. M. Reynolds, The Necromancer, in Reynolds′s Miscellany, republished 1857; 2008, page 247, It was an enthusiasm of the most rapt and holy kind.

   Her expression grew more rapt; she paused as if she had lost the thread of the words and then spoke again, gazing far out over the hall as jugglers do in performing feats of balancing:[…].

   1906, Ford Madox Ford, The Fifth Queen; And How She Came to Court: Works of Ford Madox Ford, published 2011, unnumbered page

   The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported, trembling, he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in a strong sustaining grasp.

   1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

   The first piece of the night is Shostakovich. Its first movement is a sedate, haunting, almost melodramatic nocturne, but before too long the concerto changes gear and becomes energetic, discordant, feral. It's lengthy, too, a real work-out, and much of it is brutally difficult to execute. He's on form tonight. Close to flawless, and his audience — which he cannot see or hear — seems rapt.

   2019 April 10, qntm, “CASE HATE RED”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 137

4. comparableEnthusiastic; ecstatic, elated, happy.

   He was rapt with his exam results.

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   I […]am rapt to see my Marcia's tears.

   1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 49

   Creatures who navigate long-distance migrations — including the green turtles, wind birds, or great cranes — draw his most rapt commentaries.

   1996, James Richard Giles, Wanda H. Giles, American Novelists Since World War II: Fifth Series, page 139

   2010, Michael Reichert, Richard Hawley, Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys: Strategies that Work—and Why, John Wiley & Sons, US, page 121, Even in the most rapt accounts of independent student work, there appears an appreciative acknowledgment of the teacher′s having determined just the right amount of room necessary to build autonomy without risking frustration and failure.

   One bloke I met in the pub was the owner of the local meatworks. He was rapt to have the Sudanese, and if 1600 more were coming – that was the rumour – well, he′d have been even more rapt.

   2010, Caroline Overington, I Came to Say Goodbye, page 201

   2012, Greig Caigou, Wild Horizons: More Great Hunting Adventures, HarperCollins (New Zealand), unnumbered page, These are worthy aspects of the hunt to give some consideration to with the next generation, because market forces want us to get more rapt with ever more sophisticated gear and an algorithmic conquering of animal instinct.

present singular third person rapts · participle present rapting · participle past rapted · past rapted

1. obsoleteTo transport or ravish.

   The Bards with furie rapt, the British youth among, Unto the charming Harpe thy future honor song

   1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 6 p. 89

2. obsoleteTo carry away by force.

   Out-rushing from his denne rapts all away

   1595, Samuel Daniel, “(please specify the folio number)”, in The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: […] P[eter] Short for Simon Waterson, →OCLC

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   1819-20, Washington Irving, The Spectre Bridegroom, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., reprinted in 1840, The Works of Washington Irving, Volume 1, page 256, His only daughter had either been rapt away to the grave, or he was to have some wood-demon for a son-in-law, and, perchance, a troop of goblin grandchildren.

plural rapts

1. obsoleteAn ecstasy; a trance.

   the soul then is in rapt

   1671, The Life Of The Mother S. Teresa

2. obsoleteRapidity.

   […] like the great exemplary wheeles of heaven, we must observe two Circles: that while we are daily carried about, and whirled on by the swinge and rapt of the one, we may maintain a naturall and proper course, in the slow and sober wheele of the other.

   1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 2nd edition, London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, published 1650, Preface