sensation
Pluralsensations
- 1A physical feeling or perception produced when something touches or affects the body.
A burning sensation in her throat told her the soup was too hot.
The numbing sensation faded as blood returned to his hand.
Similarfeeling
Note
The everyday sense came into English through Old French, from Medieval Latin sensatio, built on Latin sensus. It stretches easily from the body to the mind. Emerson Hough's captain in The Purchase Price (1910) feels "a curious sensation of helplessness." The usual frame is a sensation of followed by a noun, or an adjective in front naming the feeling: a burning, numbing or tingling sensation.
- 2A widespread public reaction of strong interest or excitement about someone or something.
The young gymnast's performance caused a sensation at the championships.
The book was an instant sensation, selling millions of copies within weeks.
Similarstir, hit, furor, commotion
Note
Here the feeling belongs to a crowd rather than a body. The usual verbs are make and cause: in H. P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep (1937), a poet's collection "made a real sensation." Baroness Orczy could also use the plural, writing of sensations that the public eagerly awaited. She meant the thrilling turns a scandal was expected to deliver.
- 3The stimulation of sensory organs that lets the body detect things around it.
Sensation depends on receptors in the skin, eyes, and ears sending signals to the brain.
After the surgery, sensation slowly returned to the patient's fingertips as the nerves healed.
Similarfeeling, perception, sensitivity
Oppositenumbness
Note
Physiologists and psychologists mean the process itself rather than any single feeling, and they usually treat it as a mass noun: sensation is lost, dulled or restored. Its working partner is perception. Sensation is the organs being stirred, and perception is the sense made of what they report. John Barclay in 1822 lists it among the marks of life, beside respiration: a capacity, unlike the everyday feeling.
Less common meanings
- 4A person who attracts widespread admiration or excitement by being truly remarkable.
The dancer was the sensation of the season, talked about in every drawing room.
As a debut novelist she became a sensation among the literary set.
Similarstar, phenomenon, celebrity, marvel, wonder
Note
Calling a person a sensation is now dated and uncommon. "You truly are a sensation" sounds like a compliment from another era. The use carries the stir of the public excitement over to the person who causes it. Its synonym event works the same way: the person becomes the occasion everyone talks about.
- 5A modest serving of gin or sherry taken as a drink.
A Sensation . . . . Half-a-glass of sherry.
1852, George Butler Earp, Gold Seeker's ManualNote
This was barroom slang of the mid-nineteenth century. George Butler Earp's Gold Seeker's Manual (1852) glosses a sensation as half a glass of sherry. Meliora in 1869 sets it among drinkers' names for a glass of gin, beside a drain, a common sewer and a nip. The name promises more than the glass holds. It is archaic now and belongs only to period writing.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of sensation apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
This word came from Old French, which took it from Medieval Latin "sensatio," itself from Latin "sensus."