Thrilled

How to spell thrilled

8 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce thrilled

What does thrilled mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling or showing intense excitement and pleasure.
2. verbPast tense of thrill: caused someone to feel a sudden wave of intense excitement.

Thrilled in a sentence

• adjective

  She was absolutely thrilled to be offered the new job.

• verb

  The fireworks display thrilled everyone gathered in the park.

• adjective

  The whole family felt thrilled when the holiday was finally booked.

• verb

  The surprise party thrilled her more than any gift could have.

Where does thrilled come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word traces back to the Old English verb thyrlian, which meant 'to pierce' or 'to bore a hole through something', built on thyrel, a hole, which itself came from thurh, the ancestor of the modern word 'through'. In Middle English the form was thirlen, and over time the r and the vowel swapped places in a process called metathesis, giving us 'thrill'. The leap from physical piercing to emotion came naturally: a strong feeling was imagined as something that pierces or runs sharply through the body, so to be thrilled was originally to feel as though pierced by a sudden wave of excitement. By the late 1500s the word had settled into its modern sense of being filled with keen delight. A useful spelling reminder is the doubled l, which is kept when the past tense -ed is added, giving the tidy double-l ending of 'thrilled'.

How the word is built

• thrill (from Old English thyrlian: to pierce)
• -ed (past tense/adjective suffix)