intoxicating

UK/ɪnˈtɒk.sɪ.keɪ.tɪŋ/US/ɪnˈtɒk.sɪ.keɪ.tɪŋ/

adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,435 of 15,258leans spoken

Intoxicating means making you light-headed with pleasure or drink. An intoxicating perfume, intoxicating success, intoxicating liquor.

The figurative sense is the commoner one, and it always carries a warning — what is intoxicating clouds the judgement, which is exactly the point of the metaphor. In law, intoxicating liquor is a defined term. Note that the word goes back to the Greek for a poison used on arrows.

Definitions of intoxicating

1adjectiveintoxicatingMaking you light-headed with pleasure or drink.C1
“The intoxicating smell of jasmine filled the warm night air.”
synonyms: heady, exhilarating

intoxicating is a quality of exhilaration.

Practised in Smell & Taste

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intoxicating in the wild

The Eighteenth Amendment declared the production, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors illegal, although it did not outlaw possession or consumption of alcohol.
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Volstead Act declared that liquor, wine, and beer qualified as intoxicating liquors, and were therefore prohibited.
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum argued that it "rivals The Red Shoes as the most intoxicating dance film ever made".
Mammame

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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