sensing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sense.

   The new alarm works by sensing heat from a fire.

   Sensing the crowd's mood, the speaker softened her words.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of the verb, so context decides which one is meant. With a device or an organ as its subject it means physical detection. With a person and an abstract object, such as a mood, a threat or a change, it means instinctive awareness. After a preposition (by sensing heat) it works as a gerund. When it opens a clause it is a participle. Once it takes a plural, it has become the noun for the act itself.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of sensation, by which something is perceived through the senses.

   The sensing of light begins in special cells at the back of the eye.

   Touch is one form of sensing that connects us to the physical world.

   Similarperception, sensation, detection

   Note

   A noun that can be counted: the plural sensings lets each act or kind of perception be listed and compared. Brian Patrick Hendley's Plato, Time, and Education (1987) uses it to sort through Socrates' list, which set pleasures, pains, desires and fears beside sight, hearing, and the sensings of cold and heat. Uncountable, it names the activity in general (the sensing of light). Counted, it names one act or kind among others.

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