Definitions

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

  • adjective Relating to or involving gratification of the senses.
  • adjective Sexually attractive.
  • adjective Relating to or affecting the senses; sensory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of, pertaining to, derived from, or ministering to the senses; connected with sensible objects: as, sensuous pleasures.
  • Readily affected through the senses; alive to the pleasure to be received through the senses.
  • Synonyms Carnal, etc. See sensual.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the senses, or sensible objects; addressing the senses; suggesting pictures or images of sense.
  • adjective Highly susceptible to influence through the senses.

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

  • adjective Appealing to the senses, or to sensual gratification.
  • adjective not comparable Of or relating to the senses; sensory.

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

  • adjective taking delight in beauty

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin sensus ("sense") + English -ous.

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Examples

  • His next task: Hone his unique vibe, which he characterizes as sensuous and seductive - with additional influences from popular music, rhythm-and-blues and alternative rock.

    Summit Daily News - Top Stories 2010

  • The realm of the sensuous is the realm of individual things in space and time.

    Hegel's Aesthetics Houlgate, Stephen 2009

  • They might almost have been called sensuous, but this was not a man whose demeanor spoke of such things.

    The Unquiet John Connolly 2007

  • They might almost have been called sensuous, but this was not a man whose demeanor spoke of such things.

    The Unquiet John Connolly 2007

  • Poetic, elliptical pic unfolds in short, sensuous stream-of-consciousness-like scenes that evoke an interior world of emotion and sensation. "

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Poetic, elliptical pic unfolds in short, sensuous stream-of-consciousness-like scenes that evoke an interior world of emotion and sensation. "

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Are they powerfully sensuous, that is do they appeal strongly to the physical senses, of sight (color, light, and movement), sound (including music), smell, taste, touch, and general physical sensation?

    A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher

  • The feeling which thus enters as a factor into any sensation is known as sensuous feeling.

    Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education Ontario. Ministry of Education

  • The immediate perception of sensuous or material objects by our senses is called sensuous or empirical intuition, the immediate apprehension of intellectual or immaterial objects by our intelligence is called intellectual intuition.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 8: Infamy-Lapparent 1840-1916 1913

  • There is a moment, in fact, when the instinct of life, not yet opposed to the instinct of form, acts as nature and as necessity; when the sensuous is a power because man has not begun; for even in man there can be no other power than his will.

    >Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man. Letter XX. 1909

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