exhilarate

Verb

exhilarate (third-person singular simple present exhilarates, present participle exhilarating, simple past and past participle exhilarated)

1. (transitive) To cheer, to cheer up, to gladden, to make happy, to elate.
   • Good news exhilarates the mind; wine exhilarates the drinker.
   • For the Philiſtian preſcribeth Cures of the minde in Phrenſies, and melancholy Paſsions; and pretendeth alſo to exhibite Medicines to exhilarate the minde, to confirme the courage, to clarifie the wits, to corroborate the memorie, and the like; but the ſcruples and ſuperſtitions of Diet, and other...1605, Francis Bacon, The Tvvoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane. To the King, book II, London: Printed [by Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede]...

   Synonyms:

   blissen, enliven, light up, stimulate, animate, arouse, awaken, beghast, leaven, bright

2. (transitive) To excite, to thrill.
   • [A]lcohol, as all the world knows, or should know, does not nourish, but only stimulates,—exhilarates if you will, but exhilarates as fire exhilarates! Would carbon or any other combustible exhilarate only to burn up, consume, and destroy?1856, Joel Pinney, “The Effects of Alcoholic Liquors, and the Customs of Drinking and Inebriety”, in The Duration of Human Life and Its Three Eras: When Men Attained to More than Nine Hundred Years...
   • Harriet became suddenly conscious that every woman in the room was gazing furtively or with frank interest at Wimsey and herself, and the knowledge exhilarated her.1932, Dorothy L Sayers, chapter 12, in Have his Carcase

   Synonyms:

   electrify, work up, animate, awaken, enflame, enkindle, enthrill, exagitate, excite, exsuscitate