Exhilarating means making you feel thrillingly, breathlessly alive. An exhilarating ride, exhilarating and terrifying, quite exhilarating.
It sits close to frightening, which is the point — the best examples are things that would be alarming if you were not safe, which is what a rollercoaster sells. Note the spelling: exhilarating has an h after the x and an a in the middle, and it comes from the Latin hilaris, cheerful, the same root as hilarious.
1adjectiveexhilaratingMaking you feel thrillingly alive.
“Riding the roller coaster for the first time was exhilarating.”
synonyms: thrilling, invigorating
exhilarating is a quality of thrill.
Ancient Greek
ἱλαρός — cheerful, merry
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁eǵʰs — out
Latin
exhilarō — to delight, to gladden, to make merry
English
exhilarate
English, today
exhilarating
Built from
by surface analysis, exhilarate + -ing. exhilarate comes from Latin exhilarō (“to delight, to gladden, to make merry”), from ex- (“out, away”) (from Proto-Indo-European h₁eǵʰs (“out”)) + hilarō (“to cheer, to gladden”), from hilaris (“cheerful, light-hearted, lively”), from Ancient Greek ἱλαρός (“cheerful, merry”), from ἵλαος (“gracious, kind, propitious”), from Proto-Indo-European selh₂- (“comfort, mercy”). by surface analysis, ex- + hilar(ō) + -ate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA