Library / English Dictionary

BLISS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of extreme happiness

Synonyms:

bliss; blissfulness; cloud nine; seventh heaven; walking on air

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("bliss" is a kind of...):

elation (an exhilarating psychological state of pride and optimism; an absence of depression)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bliss"):

ecstasy; rapture (a state of elated bliss)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The dim, dusty room, with the busts staring down from the tall bookcases, the cozy chairs, the globes, and best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Then, too, his bliss was heightened by the knowledge that her mind was comprehending what she read and was quivering with appreciation of the beauty of the written thought.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; and that myself and family are at the height of earthly bliss.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But much as she liked to write for children, Jo could not consent to depict all her naughty boys as being eaten by bears or tossed by mad bulls because they did not go to a particular Sabbath school, nor all the good infants who did go as rewarded by every kind of bliss, from gilded gingerbread to escorts of angels when they departed this life with psalms or sermons on their lisping tongues.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

How fond we were of one another, when she did come out at last; and what a state of bliss I was in, when we took Jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three reunited!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)