这个短语字面解释就是“像风筝一样高”，这是什么意思呢？请看对话：

    A: When I met him yesterday, John felt as high as a kite. What’s up?

    B: He won the tennis tournament, which gave his self confidence a tremendous boost.

    Note: In this context, the idiom, an informal one, means to “feel very happy and excited.” It can also mean to “behave in a silly and excited way because one has taken drugs or drunk a lot of alcohol.” “Kite” in the idiom refers either to children’s toy kites or the bird of prey of the falcon family, commonly called the red kite. Either way, a kite flies high in the sky. In the United States in the 1930s, “high” began being used to mean “excited under the influence of drugs.” The word had previously been used for centuries with the same meaning but with reference to drink rather than drugs.