exaltation

noun

Etymology: From Middle English exaltacioun, exaltatioun, from Old French exaltacion and Latin exaltātiō (“exaltation, elevation”), from exaltō (“raise, elevate, exalt”), from ex (“from, out of”) + altus (“high”). By surface analysis, exalt + -ation.

1. The act of exalting or raising high; also, the state of being exalted; elevation.

   “The irregular and undisciplined wars which it was her business to describe were naturally far more prolific of extraordinary incidents, unexpected turns of fortune, and striking displays of individual talent, and vice and virtue, than the more solemn movements of national hostility, where everything is in a great measure provided and foreseen, and where the inflexible subordination of rank, and the severe exactions of a limited duty, not only take away the inducement, but the opportunity, for those exaltations of personal feeling and adventure which produce the most lively interest, and lead to the most animating results.”

2. A feeling of happiness so intense as to be carried away by it; joyful pride bordering on ecstasy, often resulting from acclaim or triumph.
3. The refinement or subtilization of a body, or the increasing of its virtue or principal property.
4. That placement of a planet in the zodiac in which it is deemed to exert its strongest influence.

   “He often stood there in a muse until dusk fell, and then darkness, while once in a while the moon, ‘in her exaltation’ as the astrologers say, rose to remind him that such worldly musings meant nothing to the hostile universe without.”

5. Apotheosis; becoming a god in the highest degree of glory after death.

   “Those who obtain exaltation will gain all power and thus themselves be omnipotent […]”

   “Mormon commentators have taken various position about whether people who have died could move from a lower degree of glory—what non-Mormons might call salvation—to a higher one and eventually reach exaltation and become gods.”

6. The collective noun for larks.

   “"Oh, I, well, I too fell into error, for I frittered away my morning in stalking yonder exaltation of larks, thinking they were dunlin, and in doing so disturbed the only sord of mallards on the whole marsh."”

   “In a sense, the editorial cartoons were correct when they suggested that an exaltation of larks can fly under the influence into an aspect of vulturous behavior.”

7. An abnormal sense of personal well-being, power, or importance, observed as a symptom in various forms of insanity.