different between ecstasy vs laughter

English

Alternative forms

• extasy (obsolete)
• ecstacy (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French estaise (“ecstasy, rapture”), from Latin ecstasis, from Ancient Greek ???????? (ékstasis), from ???????? (exíst?mi, “I displace”), from ?? (ek, “out”) and ?????? (híst?mi, “I stand”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k.st?.si/

Noun

ecstasy (countable and uncountable, plural ecstasies)

1. Intense pleasure.

   Antonym: agony

   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1, [1]

     This is the very ecstasy of love, / Whose violent property fordoes itself / And leads the will to desperate undertakings / As oft as any passion under heaven / That does afflict our natures.

   • 1634, John Milton, Comus, lines 623-5, [2]

     He loved me well, and oft would beg me sing; / Which when I did, he on the tender grass / Would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy,

2. A state of emotion so intense that a person is carried beyond rational thought and self-control.
3. A trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.
   • 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, Act IV, Scene I, [4]

     What! are you dreaming, Son! with Eyes cast upwards / Like a mad Prophet in an Ecstasy?

4. (obsolete) Violent emotion or distraction of mind; excessive grief from anxiety; insanity; madness.
   • c. 1590, Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Act I, [5]

     Come, let us leave him; in his ireful mood / Our words will but increase his ecstasy.

   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, [6]

     And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, / That suck'd the honey of his music vows, / Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, / Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; / That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth / Blasted with ecstasy.

5. (slang) The drug MDMA, a synthetic entactogen of the methylenedioxyphenethylamine family, especially in a tablet form.

   Synonyms: MDMA, molly, (modern vernacular) E, eckie, ecky, XTC, X, thizz, (obsolete) empathy

6. (medicine, dated) A state in which sensibility, voluntary motion, and (largely) mental power are suspended; the body is erect and inflexible; but the pulse and breathing are not affected.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Mayne to this entry?)

Related terms

• ecstatic

Translations

Verb

ecstasy (third-person singular simple present ecstasies, present participle ecstasying, simple past and past participle ecstasied)

1. (intransitive) To experience intense pleasure.
2. (transitive) To cause intense pleasure in.

Anagrams

• Cassety, cytases

Dutch

Alternative forms

• xtc

Etymology

Borrowed from English ecstasy.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k.st?.si/, /??k.sti.si/
• Hyphenation: ec?sta?sy

Noun

ecstasy m (uncountable)

1. ecstasy (MDMA, recreational drug)

Portuguese

Noun

ecstasy m (usually uncountable, plural ecstasys)

1. ecstasy (drug)

English

Alternative forms

• laughtre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English laughter, laghter, la?ter, from Old English hleahtor (“laughter, jubilation, derision”), from Proto-Germanic *hlahtraz (“laughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *klek-, *kleg- (“to shout”). Cognate with German Gelächter (“laughter, hilarity, merriment”), Danish and Norwegian latter (“laughter”), Icelandic hlátur (“laughter”). More at laugh.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?l??ft?/
• (US) enPR: l?f?t?r, IPA^(key): /?læft?/
• Rhymes: -??ft?(r)

Noun

laughter (usually uncountable, plural laughters)

1. The sound of laughing, produced by air so expelled; any similar sound.
2. A movement (usually involuntary) of the muscles of the laughing face, particularly of the lips, and of the whole body, with a peculiar expression of the eyes, indicating merriment, satisfaction or derision, and usually attended by a sonorous and interrupted expulsion of air from the lungs.

   • The act of laughter, which is caused by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves.

   • Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter.

3. (archaic) A reason for merriment.

Usage notes

Laughter is statistically the happiest English language word on Twitter according to the Hedonometer, an online tool that measures happiness, with an overall happiness score of 8.5 out of 9, followed by happiness, which scored 8.44, and love, which scored 8.42.

Related terms

• laugh

Translations

Anagrams

• laughtre

Middle English

Alternative forms

• (Early ME) lehter, lihter, leihter, lahter, leahter, hleiter
• lauhtre, laghter, la?ter, lau?ter, laughtere, lau?tere, laghtre, laughtre, lei?tir, la?tir, lau?tur, laughtir

Etymology

From Old English hleahtor, from Proto-Germanic *hlahtraz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?lau?xt?r/, /?l?i?xt?r/, /?laxt?r/, /?lixt?r/

Noun

laughter (plural laughtres)

1. Laughter; the production of laughs or snickers.

2. An instance or bout of laughing or laughter.
3. A humorous matter; something worthy of being derided.

Descendants

• English: laughter
• Scots: lachter, lauchter

References

• “laughter, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-19.