Word.ws English Dictionary

trance

/tɹɑːns/US/tɹæns/

trance noun: a dazed or unconscious condition. Also the ellipsis of trance music.

Noun (1)

trance (countable and uncountable, plural trances)

  1. (countable) A dazed or unconscious condition.
  2. (countable) A state of awareness, concentration, or focus that filters experience and information (for example, a state of meditation or possession by some being).
    • And he became very hungry, and would have eaten; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 10:10
    • My soul was ravished quite as in a trance.1595, Edmunde Spenser [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “[Amoretti.] Sonnet XXXIX”, in Amoretti and Epithalamion. […], London: […] [Peter Short] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC
  3. (countable) A state of low response to stimulus and diminished, narrow attention; particularly one induced by hypnosis.

Verb (1)

trance (third-person singular simple present trances, present participle trancing, simple past and past participle tranced)

  1. (ambitransitive) To (cause to) be in a trance; to entrance.
    • And there I left him tranced.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  2. (rare, transitive) To create in or via a trance.
    • The Horned Toad (kɛŋkak) tranced the rivers into being. A bakɔh bird tranced the mountains. The Scrub Bulbul (ˀɛsˀããs) drilled fire into existence with its beak. And, finally, the Bronzed Black Drongo (tɛrhɛɛh) tranced the year […]2014, Geoffrey Benjamin, Temiar Religion, 1964-2012, page 64
    • What is interesting for us here is that Chingkai and her familiars dreamed and tranced the Temiar world into being. […]1995, Sue Jennings, Kevin Jennings, Theatre, Ritual, and Transformation: The Senoi Temiars, page 111

Verb (2)

trance (third-person singular simple present trances, present participle trancing, simple past and past participle tranced)

  1. (dialectal, intransitive, obsolete outside UK) To walk heavily or with some difficulty; to tramp, to trudge.
    Synonyms:
    trounce
  2. (dialectal, intransitive, obsolete outside UK) To pass across or over; to traverse.
    • Trance the world o'er.1626 February 1 (licensing date; Gregorian calendar), John Fletcher [et al.], “The Faire Maide of the Inne”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey...
    • After the flitting of the bats, / When thickest dark did trance the sky, / She drew the casement-curtain by, / And glanced athwart the glooming flats.1830 June, Alfred Tennyson, “Mariana”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, stanza II, page 11
    Synonyms:
    trounce
  3. (dialectal, intransitive, obsolete outside UK) To travel quickly over a long distance.
    Synonyms:
    trounce

Noun (2)

trance (plural trances)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete outside UK) A tedious journey.
    • So saying, he led the way out through halls and trances that were weel kend to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour; […]1824, Sir Walter Scott, Redgauntlet
    Synonyms:
    trounce

Proper noun capitalized: Trance

Trance

  1. (derogatory, offensive) France.

Also used as

trance is also the ellipsis of trance music.

trance meaning in Hindi, Kannada, Arabic and Indonesian

trance in Hindi

genre of electronic dance music
ट्रान्स ṭrāns

trance in Kannada

genre of electronic dance music
ಟ್ರಾನ್ಸ್ ṭrāns

trance in Arabic

genre of electronic dance music
ترانس

trance in Indonesian

genre of electronic dance music
trance
More languagesFewer languages
trance in Thai
แทรนซ์
trance in Vietnamese
trance

Examples of trance in a sentence

  • The trance DJ was keen to secure a residency in Ibiza.
  • The hypnotist then proceeded to deepen his trance.
  • Maybe it required an immersive trance, like a psychedelic vision quest.

All 36 example sentences with trance

Synonyms of trance

Forms of trance

Noun
pluraltrances
alternative formtraunce
Verb
third-person singular presenttrances
present participletrancing
past participletranced
pasttranced

Plural of trance: trances

Origin of trance

From Middle English traunce, from Anglo-Norman transe (“fear of coming evil; passage from life to death”), from transir (“to be numb with fear; to die, pass on”), from Latin trānseō (“to cross over”).

The verb is derived from Middle English traunce, trauncen, trancen (“to move about (?); to prance (?); to trample the ground”) (whence modern English trounce with the same senses, which see for more). The noun is probably derived from the verb.

Possibly a mix of trans + France.

Words formed from trance

Phrases with trance

Words that rhyme with trance

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about trance

What does trance mean?
Trance means a dazed or unconscious condition.
What is trance in Hindi?
Trance in Hindi is ट्रान्स (ṭrāns). See Trance meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is trance?
Trance can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce trance?
Trance is pronounced /tɹɑːns/ (UK).
What is the plural of trance?
The plural of trance is trances.

Words near trance in the dictionary

  1. tranarchists
  2. tranarchy
  3. tranation
  4. tranatocetid
  5. tranatocetids
  6. trance
  7. trance gate
  8. trance gates
  9. trance music
  10. trance out
  11. trance-like

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trance (page history and authors); Trance (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-trance.wav.

Cite this entry: “trance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.