Definition of "rapt" in Anglais

adjective

1. (not comparable, archaic) Snatched, taken away; abducted.

2. (not comparable) Lifted up into the air; transported into heaven.

3. (comparable) Very 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.
   • 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.

4. (comparable) Enthusiastic; ecstatic, elated, happy.

   • He was rapt with his exam results.
   • 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.
   • 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.

verb

1. (obsolete) To transport or ravish.

2. (obsolete) To carry away by force.

   • 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.

noun

1. (obsolete) An ecstasy; a trance.

2. (obsolete) Rapidity.