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rapture

Etymology and origin of the English word rapture

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɹæpt͡ʃəː/ (UK); /ˈɹæpt͡ʃɚ/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French rapture (“abduction, carrying off”),[2][3][4][5] or formed in English from rapt and -ure,[4][5] from Medieval Latin raptura and Latin raptus “a carrying off”,[2][3][4][6] from rapere “to seize”.[3] It is a close relative of rape.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act of carrying off as prey or plunder, or of carrying off a woman (about 1600).[7][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The connecting idea between the senses is a sudden or violent taking and carrying away.[4] The earliest uses had women as objects, and in the 17th century the word sometimes meant rape.[4][7] The sense “transport of mind, ecstasy” appeared in the early 17th century (1629),[7][3][4] and “an expression of ecstatic feeling” from the 1610s, as in the phrase to go into raptures.[4][7] The Rapture, the belief that faithful Christians will be taken up into heaven at the end of time, dates from about 1852, after an interpretation by John Nelson Darby.[4][6]

Timeline

  • 1594 – Merriam-Webster's date.[6]
  • c. 1600 – a carrying off; abduction.[7][3][4]
  • 1629 – spiritual ecstasy.[7][3]
  • 1637 – verb, to enrapture.[7][6]
  • 1678 – rapturous.[3]
  • 1852 – the Rapture.[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A state of intense joy or delight; ecstasy.
  2. An expression of ecstatic feeling, often in the plural, as in went into raptures.
  3. The carrying of a person from one place to another, especially to heaven.
  4. (often capitalized) In some Christian belief, the taking up of the faithful into heaven at the Second Coming.

Verb

  1. To enrapture.

Word family

  • rapturous
  • rapturously
  • enrapture

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Rapture.” Etymologically, 11 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/rapture. Accessed 11 Oct. 2026.

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