Sensation definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (51)

American Heritage Dictionary (6)

noun A perception associated with stimulation of a sense organ or with a specific body condition: the sensation of heat; a visual sensation.
noun The faculty to feel or perceive; physical sensibility: The patient has very little sensation left in the right leg.
noun An indefinite generalized body feeling: a sensation of lightness.

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Century Dictionary (39)

The action, faculty, or immediate mental result of receiving a mental impression from any affection of the bodily organism; sensitive apprehension; corporeal feeling; any feeling; also, the elements of feeling or immediate consciousness and of consciousness of reaction in perception; the subjective element of perception. Sensation has to be distinguished from feeling on the one hand, and from perception on the other. All are abstractions, or objects segregated by the mind from their concomitants, but perception is less so and feeling more so than sensation. Sensation is feeling together with the direct consciousness of that feeling forcing itself upon us, so that it involves the essential element of the conception of an object; but sensation is considered apart from its union with associated sensations, by which a perception is built up. Sensations are either peripheral or visceral. Among the latter are to be specially mentioned sensations of operations in the brain. No approach to a satisfactory enumeration of the different kinds of sensations, even of the peripheral kind, has been made. Those that make motion and sensation thus really the same, they must of necessity acknowledge that no longer motion, no longer sensation, … and that every motion or reaction must be a new sensation, as well as every ceasing of reaction a ceasing of sensation. Dr. H. More, Immortal. of Soul, II. i. 12. The perception which actually accompanies and is annexed to any impression on the body made by an external object, being distinct from all other modifications of thinking, furnishes the mind with a distinct idea, which we call sensation. Locke, Human Understanding, II. xix. 1. Sensation, so long as we take the analytic point of view, differs from perception only in the extreme simplicity of its object or content…. From the physiological point of view both sensations and perceptions differ from thoughts in the fact that nerve-currents coming in from the periphery are involved in their production. W. James, Prin. of Psychology, xvii. Impressions may be divided into two kinds, those of sensation and those of reflexion. The first kind arises in the soul originally, from unknown causes. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, I. ii. The feelings which accompany the exercise of these sensitive or corporeal powers, whether cognitive or appetent, will constitute a distinct class, and to these we may with great propriety give the name of sensations; whereas on the feelings which accompany the energies of all our higher powers of mind we may with equal propriety bestow the name of sentiments. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xlv. Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master, The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster. While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain, And quick sensations skip from vein to vein. Pope, Dunciad, ii. 212. Sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart. Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey. She was hardly conscious of any bodily sensation except a sensation of strength inspired by a mighty emotion. George Eliot, Mill on the Floss, vii. 5.
A state of interest or of feeling; especially, a state of excited interest or feeling. The sensation caused by the appearance of that work is still remembered by many. Brougham. The actor's dress had caught fire, and the house had a sensation not bargained for. J. C. Jeaffreson, Live it Down, xxii. An intellectual voluptuary, a moral dilettante [Petrarch], the first instance of that character, since too common, the gentleman in search of a sensation. Lowell, Among my Books, 1st ser., p. 366.
That which produces sensation or excited interest or feeling: as, the greatest sensation of the day.

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Examples (50)

You assume the sensation is the same for them, but there's a lot more to pain than a signal passing through the spinal gates I've had kidney stones—as you know. — AnalogSFF,November2007
It had been bad enough to feel excluded from Lucy's life in London, but on his own ship, the sensation was almost unbearable. — Teresa Medeiros - Thief of Hearts
Still, my sensation is the incipit of this article is also slightly biased, towards Kuhn's view of science. — Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en]
"We hope her sensation is a sensation of satiety, a sensation of fullness, a lack of compulsion to consume excess calories," Bailes told "Nightline". — Reuters: Top News
He had never been up after dark, and the sensation was a new one. — Battling the Clouds or, For a Comrade's Honor

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emotion · impression · excitement · impulse · vision · agony · expression · touch · sound · thrill · warmth · reality

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

French, from Old French, from Medieval Latin sēnsātiō, sēnsātiōn-, from Late Latin sēnsātus, gifted with sense; see sensate.

Century Dictionary (1)

from Old French sensacion, French sensation = Provencal sensation = Spanish sensacion = Portuguese sensação = Italian sensazione, from Middle Latin *sensatio (n-), from Latin sensatus, endued with sense: see sensate.

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