exhilarating
exhilarating is the present participle and gerund of exhilarate.
Meaning of exhilarate
Verb
exhilarate (third-person singular simple present exhilarates, present participle exhilarating, simple past and past participle exhilarated)
- To cheer, to cheer up, to gladden, to make happy, to elate.
- Good news exhilarates the mind; wine exhilarates the drinker.
- 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...
Adjective
exhilarating (comparative more exhilarating, superlative most exhilarating)
- Refreshingly thrilling.
- Mrs. Palmer added, "that this news, though it could scarcely be called exhilarating, had had such an effect on her elderly friends, that they had determined to set out to Bath, and, when rested, proceed thence to Exeter, in order to be nearer the place where the vessel was expected, and to be a...1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LVII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 109–110
- The switchback road to Diabaig - pronounced 'Jer-vague' - passes through some of the most exhilarating scenery in Scotland. […] With a final swoop, the road plummets down into Diabaig, where cottages are dotted across the slopes of a rocky semi-circle.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 151
- Synonyms:
- exhilarant, cheering, gladdening, stimulating, enlivening, absorbing, alacrifying, awesome, banging, bracing
Synonyms of exhilarating
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- hot
- compelling
- distracting
- dramatic
- edge-of-the-seat
- engrossing
- electric
- electrifying
- enthralling
- exciting
- exhilarative
- explosive
- fascinating
- hair-curling
- hair-raising
- heady
- heart-pounding
- heartstopping
- heartswelling
- intoxicating
- gripping
- impressive
- inspiring
- invigorating
- jiggy
- kicky
- mind-blowing
- moving
- off the chain
- pulse-pounding
Forms of exhilarating
| comparative | more exhilarating |
|---|---|
| superlative | most exhilarating |
Origin of exhilarating
By surface analysis, exhilarate + -ing.
Words formed from exhilarating
Questions about exhilarating
- What does exhilarating mean?
- Exhilarating means refreshingly thrilling.
- What is exhilarating the present participle and gerund of?
- Exhilarating is the present participle and gerund of exhilarate.
- What part of speech is exhilarating?
- Exhilarating is an adjective.
Words near exhilarating in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: exhilarating (page history and authors); exhilarate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “exhilarating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/exhilarating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.