1598 J. Marston Metamorph. Pigmalions Image v. 3 Beames..shoote from out the fairenes of her eye: At which he stands as in an extasie.

1600 P. Holland tr. Livy Rom. Hist. xliiii. xv. 179 The principall person of the embassage..fell downe flat before them in a swoune and extasie.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Othello (1622) iv. i. 78 I..layed good scuse, vpon your extacy [stage direct. to line 42: He fals downe, 1623 Falls in a Trauncs].

1702 Clarendon's Hist. Rebellion I. iii. 160 The Ministers of the State..like men in an Extasy..had no Speech or Motion.

1866 A. Flint Treat. Princ. Med. 628 Ecstasy. In this condition, the mind, absorbed in a dominant idea, becomes insensible to surrounding objects.

1882 R. Quain Dict. Med. s.v. The term ecstasy has been applied to certain morbid states of the nervous system, in which the attention is occupied exclusively by one idea, and the cerebral control is in part withdrawn from the lower cerebral and certain reflex functions. These latter centres may be in a condition of inertia, or of insubordinate activity, presenting various disordered phenomena, for the most part motor.

a1652 J. Smith Select Disc. (1660) iv. vi. 100 In such sober kind of Ecstacies did Plotinus find his own Soul separated from his Body.

1656 H. More Antidote Atheism (1712) iii. ix. 171 The Emigration of humane Souls from the bodie by Ecstasy.

1690 J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding ii. xix. 112 Whether that which we call Extasie, be not dreaming with the Eyes open, I leave to be examined.

1696 J. Aubrey Misc. (1721) 181/2 Things seen in an Extacy are more certain than those we behold in dreams.

1843 R. W. Emerson Transcendentalist in Dial Jan. 300 He [the Transcendentalist] believes in inspiration and in ecstasy.

1856 R. A. Vaughan Hours with Mystics (1860) I. iii. ii. 65 Ecstasy..is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness.

1879 Lefevre Philos. i. 29 The Chaldæans and the Semites let loose on the West these wanton rites, the intoxication of the senses, and by a natural transposition, mystic ecstasy.

1670 J. Milton Hist. Brit. ii. 63 Certaine women in a kind of ecstasie foretold of calamities to come.

1682 Bp. G. Burnet Hist. Rights Princes (new ed.) iv. 125 Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans..being in an Extasy, saw him in Hell.

1751 T. Gray Elegy xii. 7 Hands..wak'd to extacy the living lyre.

1757 T. Gray Ode I iii. ii, in Odes 10 He, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Extasy.

1813 W. Scott Bridal of Triermain iii. xxxv. 188 [She] leant upon a harp, in mood Of minstrel ecstasy.

1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. IIIi^v After they come downe agayne to themselfe frome suche excessiue eleuacion or extasy.

1583 P. Stubbes Anat. Abuses Ep. Ded. sig. ¶iii^v In extasie of despaire.

1601 J. Weever Mirror of Martyrs sig. Div^v In a sorrow-sighing extasie, Henry tooke leaue.

1620 J. Melton Astrologaster 4 This extasie of my admiration was broken off by the occasion of a noyse.

1645 J. Milton Il Penseroso in Poems 43 As may with sweetnes, through mine ear, Dissolve me into extasies.

a1704 T. Brown Pleas. Love in Wks. (1707) I. i. 151 In Exstasies I wou'd dissolving lie.

1723 D. Defoe Hist. Col. Jack (ed. 2) 32 Boyish Tricks that I play'd in the Extacy of my Joy.

1820 W. Scott Monastery I. v. 182 The ecstasy of the Monk's terror.

1831 T. B. Macaulay Moore's Life Byron in Ess. (1854) I. 165 What somebody calls the ‘ecstasy of woe’.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 627 The crowd was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that, etc.

1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt I. i. 37 There had been no ecstasy, no gladness even.

1879 M. Arnold Fr. Crit. Milton in Mixed Ess. Ess. 242 When he hears it he is in ecstasies.

1695 Ld. Preston tr. Boethius Of Consol. Philos. i. 32 The Fury and Extasies of a giddy and passionate Multitude.

1725 E. Fenton in A. Pope et al. tr. Homer Odyssey I. iv. 1013 Shrill ecstasies of joy declare The fav'ring Goddess present to the pray'r.