rapt

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin raptus, past participle of rapio (“to seize”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹæpt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æpt
• Homophones: rapped, wrapped, wrapt

Adjective

rapt (comparative more rapt, superlative most rapt)

1. (not comparable, archaic) Snatched, taken away; abducted.
   • [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC:

     And through the Greeks and Ilians they rapt / The whirring chariot.

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1626, Henry Wotton, letter to Nicholas Pey:

     From Oxford I was rapt by my nephew, Sir Edmund Francis Bacon, to Redgrove.

2. (not comparable) Lifted up into the air; transported into heaven.
3. (comparable) Very interested, involved in something, absorbed, transfixed; fascinated or engrossed.

   The children watched in rapt attention as the magician produced object after object from his hat.

   • 1851-2, George W. M. Reynolds, The Necromancer, in Reynolds′s Miscellany, republished 1857; 2008, page 247,

     It was an enthusiasm of the most rapt and holy kind.

   • 1906, Ford Madox Ford, The Fifth Queen; And How She Came to Court: Works of Ford Madox Ford, published 2011, unnumbered page:

     Her expression grew more rapt; she paused as if she had lost the thread of the words and then spoke again, gazing far out over the hall as jugglers do in performing feats of balancing: […] .

   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported, trembling, he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in a strong sustaining grasp.

   • 1998, Derel Leebaert, “Present at the Creation”, in Derek Leebaert, editor, The Future of the Electronic Marketplace, page 24:
4. (comparable) Enthusiatic; ecstatic, elated, happy.

   He was rapt with his exam results.

   • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene iv, page 1:

     I […] am rapt with joy to see my Marcia's tears.

   • 1996, James Richard Giles, Wanda H. Giles, American Novelists Since World War II: Fifth Series, page 139:

     Creatures who navigate long-distance migrations — including the green turtles, wind birds, or great cranes — draw his most rapt commentaries.

   • 2010, Michael Reichert, Richard Hawley, Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys: Strategies that Work—and Why, John Wiley & Sons, US, page 121,

     Even in the most rapt accounts of independent student work, there appears an appreciative acknowledgment of the teacher′s having determined just the right amount of room necessary to build autonomy without risking frustration and failure.

   • 2010, Caroline Overington, I Came to Say Goodbye, page 201:

     One bloke I met in the pub was the owner of the local meatworks. He was rapt to have the Sudanese, and if 1600 more were coming – that was the rumour – well, he′d have been even more rapt.

   • 2012, Greig Caigou, Wild Horizons: More Great Hunting Adventures, HarperCollins (New Zealand), unnumbered page,

     These are worthy aspects of the hunt to give some consideration to with the next generation, because market forces want us to get more rapt with ever more sophisticated gear and an algorithmic conquering of animal instinct.

Verb

rapt (third-person singular simple present rapts, present participle rapting, simple past and past participle rapted or rapt)

1. (obsolete) To transport or ravish.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 6 p. 89:

     The Bards with furie rapt, the British youth among,
     Unto the charming Harpe thy future honor song

2. (obsolete) To carry away by force.
   • 1819-20, Washington Irving, The Spectre Bridegroom, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., reprinted in 1840, The Works of Washington Irving, Volume 1, page 256,

     His only daughter had either been rapt away to the grave, or he was to have some wood-demon for a son-in-law, and, perchance, a troop of goblin grandchildren.

   • 1595, Samuel Daniel, “(please specify the folio number)”, in The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, London: […] P[eter] Short for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:

     Out-rushing from his denne rapts all away

Noun

rapt (plural rapts)

1. (obsolete) An ecstasy; a trance.
   • 1671, The Life Of The Mother S. Teresa:

     the soul then is in rapt

2. (obsolete) Rapidity.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica‎, 2nd edition, London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, published 1650, Preface:

     […] like the great exemplary wheeles of heaven, we must observe two Circles: that while we are daily carried about, and whirled on by the swinge and rapt of the one, we may maintain a naturall and proper course, in the slow and sober wheele of the other.

Anagrams

• TRAP, part, part., patr-, prat, rtPA, tarp, trap

Adjective

rapt

1. neuter singular of rap

Adverb

rapt

1. quickly, rapidly

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin raptus. Cf. ravir.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁapt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (Switzerland):

  (file)

Noun

rapt m (plural rapts)

1. kidnapping, abduction

   Synonym: enlèvement

Further reading

• “rapt”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Alternative forms

• rapa, rapet

Verb

rapt

1. past participle of rape

Etymology

Borrowed from French rapt, from Latin raptus.

Noun

rapt n (plural rapturi)

1. kidnapping, abduction