Definitions

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

  • noun A hypnotic, cataleptic, or ecstatic state.
  • noun Detachment from one's physical surroundings, as in contemplation or daydreaming.
  • noun A semiconscious state, as between sleeping and waking; a daze.
  • noun A genre of electronic dance music with a fast tempo, repetitive phrasing, and often an hypnotic effect.
  • transitive verb To put into a trance; entrance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To tramp; travel.
  • noun A journeying or journey over a country; especially, a tedious journey.
  • noun A passage, especially a passage inside a house.
  • To entrance; place in or as in a trance or rapture.
  • To hold or bind with or as with a charm or spell; overspread or shroud as with a spell; charm; enchant.
  • noun A passing away or apart; a state in which the soul seems to have passed out of the body into another state of being; a state of insensibility to mundane things; a rapture; an ecstasy.
  • noun A state of perplexity or bewilderment; amaze.
  • noun In medicine, catalepsy; ecstasy; the hypnotic state.

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

  • intransitive verb obsolete To pass; to travel.
  • transitive verb To entrance.
  • transitive verb Poetic To pass over or across; to traverse.
  • noun Prov. Eng. A tedious journey.
  • noun A state in which the soul seems to have passed out of the body into another state of being, or to be rapt into visions; an ecstasy.
  • noun (Med.) A condition, often simulating death, in which there is a total suspension of the power of voluntary movement, with abolition of all evidences of mental activity and the reduction to a minimum of all the vital functions so that the patient lies still and apparently unconscious of surrounding objects, while the pulsation of the heart and the breathing, although still present, are almost or altogether imperceptible.

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

  • verb obsolete To pass; to travel.
  • noun A dazed or unconscious condition.
  • noun A state of concentration, awareness and/or focus that filters information and experience; e.g. meditation, possession, etc.
  • noun psychology A state of low response to stimulus and diminished, narrow attention.
  • noun psychology The previous state induced by hypnosis.
  • noun uncountable Trance music, a genre of electronic dance music.

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

  • noun a psychological state induced by (or as if induced by) a magical incantation
  • noun a state of mind in which consciousness is fragile and voluntary action is poor or missing; a state resembling deep sleep
  • verb attract; cause to be enamored

Etymologies

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

[Middle English traunce, from Old French transe, passage, fear, vision, from transir, to die, be numb with fear, from Latin trānsīre, to go over or across; see transient.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English traunce, from Old French transe ("fear of coming evil", "passage from life to death"), from transir ("to be numb with fear", "die", "pass on"), from Latin trānseō ("to cross over")

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