- rapt
- c.1400, "carried away" (in an ecstatic trance), from L. raptus, pp. of rapere "seize, carry off" (see rapid). Sense of "engrossed" first recorded 1509. As a pp. adj. in Eng., the back-formed verb rap "to affect with rapture" was common c.1600-1750. The fig. sense is from the notion of "carried up into Heaven (bodily or in a dream)," as in a saint's vision.