Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To cause to feel a sudden sensation of pleasure or delight; excite greatly.
  • intransitive verb To cause to quiver, tremble, or vibrate.
  • intransitive verb To feel a sudden sensation of pleasure or delight.
  • intransitive verb To quiver, tremble, or vibrate.
  • noun A sudden feeling of pleasure or excitement.
  • noun A source or cause of pleasure or excitement.
  • noun A quivering or trembling caused by sudden excitement or emotion.
  • noun Medicine A slight palpable vibration associated with a cardiac murmur and certain other cardiac or respiratory conditions.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To bore; pierce; perforate; drill: thirl. Compare thirl, 1.
  • To penetrate or permeate with a sudden wave of feeling, as of pleasure, pity, remorse, etc.; affect or fill with a tingling emotion or sensation. Compare thirl, 2.
  • To hurl.
  • To penetrate or permeate; pass, run, or stir with sudden permeating inflow; move quiveringly or so as to cause a sort of shivering sensation.
  • To be agitated or moved by or as by the permeating inflow of some subtle feeling or influence; quiver; shiver.
  • To quiver or move with a tremulous movement; vibrate; throb, as a voice.
  • noun A hole; specifically, a breathing-hole: a nostril. Compare nostril (nose-thrill).
  • noun A subtle permeating influx of emotion or sensation; a feeling that permeates the whole system with subtle, irresistible force: as, a thrill of horror.
  • noun In medicine, a peculiar tremor felt, in certain conditions of the respiratory or circulatory organs, upon applying the hand to the body; fremitus.
  • noun A throb; a beat or pulsation.
  • noun A tale or book the hearing or perusal of which sends a thrill or sensation of pleasure, pity, or excitement through one; a sensational story.
  • To warble; trill.
  • noun A warbling; a trill.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To pierce, as something sharp; to penetrate; especially, to cause a tingling sensation that runs through the system with a slight shivering.
  • intransitive verb To feel a sharp, shivering, tingling, or exquisite sensation, running through the body.
  • transitive verb obsolete To perforate by a pointed instrument; to bore; to transfix; to drill.
  • transitive verb Hence, to affect, as if by something that pierces or pricks; to cause to have a shivering, throbbing, tingling, or exquisite sensation; to pierce; to penetrate.
  • transitive verb obsolete To hurl; to throw; to cast.
  • noun A breathing place or hole; a nostril, as of a bird.
  • noun A drill. See 3d drill, 1.
  • noun A sensation as of being thrilled; a tremulous excitement.
  • noun A warbling; a trill.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb ergative To suddenly excite someone, or to give someone great pleasure; to (figuratively) electrify; to experience such a sensation.
  • verb ergative To (cause something to) tremble or quiver.
  • verb obsolete To pierce.
  • noun a trembling or quivering, especially one caused by emotion
  • noun a cause of sudden excitement; a kick
  • noun medicine a slight quivering of the heart that accompanies a cardiac murmur

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun something that causes you to experience a sudden intense feeling or sensation
  • verb feel sudden intense sensation or emotion
  • noun an almost pleasurable sensation of fright
  • verb cause to be thrilled by some perceptual input
  • verb tremble convulsively, as from fear or excitement
  • verb fill with sublime emotion
  • noun the swift release of a store of affective force

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English thrillen, alteration of thirlen, to pierce, from Old English thȳrlian, from thȳrel, hole; see terə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English þyrlian.

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Examples

  • Professor Shairp defined the soul of poetry when he wrote: "Whenever the soul comes vividly in contact with any fact, truth, or existence, which it realizes and takes home to itself with more than common intensity, out of that meeting of the soul and its object there arises a thrill of joy, a glow of emotion; and the expression of that _glow_, that _thrill_, is poetry."

    Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 The Guide Charles Herbert Sylvester

  • The actual case was described at the time as the crime of the century, and the basis of the term thrill killers can trace its derivation to this very case.

    Yes Weekly 2009

  • The actual case was described at the time as the crime of the century, and the basis of the term thrill killers can trace its derivation to this very case.

    Yes Weekly 2009

  • The actual case was described at the time as the crime of the century, and the basis of the term thrill killers can trace its derivation to this very case.

    Yes Weekly 2009

  • The actual case was described at the time as the crime of the century, and the basis of the term thrill killers can trace its derivation to this very case.

    Yes Weekly 2009

  • I've been doing this for over two years now, but when I open the package and see that wonderful thing with my name on it, I have to say the thrill is as big as it ever was.

    April 2008 2008

  • I've been doing this for over two years now, but when I open the package and see that wonderful thing with my name on it, I have to say the thrill is as big as it ever was.

    Random Chatter 2008

  • So I await more info and articles on OPML from you to see what the thrill is all about!

    FeedBurner Announces New Interactive RSS Service « Lorelle on WordPress 2005

  • DELONG: Well, sometimes these things are just what we call a thrill killing.

    CNN Transcript Dec 1, 2003 2003

  • Pat Quinn had what he described as a thrill of a lifetime when he took his turn in the Olympic torch run Wednesday.

    Edmonton Sun 2010

Comments

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  • thrill in the sense of drilling

    January 12, 2007

  • And thus thrilling and boring are (unmetaphorically) synonymous.

    Also the root of the second component of nostril.

    January 12, 2009

  • "...Do things ever give you a thrill?"

    Matthew ruminated.

    "Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds."

    -Anne of Green Gables

    April 18, 2009