sensation

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See also: Sensation

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old French, from Medieval Latin sensatio, from Latin sensus.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • enPR: sĕn-sā'shən, IPA(key): /sɛnˈseɪʃən/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun[edit]

sensation (countable and uncountable, plural sensations)

  1. A physical feeling or perception from something that comes into contact with the body; something sensed.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.
    • 1921, Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind:
      Confining ourselves, for the moment, to sensations, we find that there are different degrees of publicity attaching to different sorts of sensations. If you feel a toothache when the other people in the room do not, you are in no way surprised; but if you hear a clap of thunder when they do not, you begin to be alarmed as to your mental condition.
  2. A widespread reaction of interest or excitement.
    • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Tremarn Case[1]:
      “Two or three months more went by; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. []
    • 1937, H. P. Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep:
      Young Derby's odd genius developed remarkably, and in his eighteenth year his collected nightmare-lyrics made a real sensation when issued under the title Azathoth and Other Horrors.
  3. (figurative, uncommon, dated) A remarkable person.
    You truly are a sensation.
    Synonym: event
  4. (slang, archaic) A small serving of gin or sherry.
    • 1852, George Butler Earp, Gold Seeker's Manual, page 52:
      A Sensation . . . . Half-a-glass of sherry.
    • 1869, Meliora, volume 12, page 47:
      When men go into a 'sluicery' for a 'sensation,' a 'drain,' or a 'common sewer,' they call the glass of gin they seek, in allusion to the juniper, a 'nipper,' or, more briefly, a 'nip,' occasionally a 'bite,' and not unfrequently it turns out a 'flogger.'

Hyponyms[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  • (small serving of gin): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Inherited from Medieval Latin sensationem, accusative of sensatio, from Latin sēnsus.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

sensation f (plural sensations)

  1. sensation

Derived terms[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Swedish[edit]

Noun[edit]

sensation c

  1. a sensation ((something causing) widespread excitement)
  2. a sensation (perception)
    Synonym: sinnesintryck

Declension[edit]

Declension of sensation 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative sensation sensationen sensationer sensationerna
Genitive sensations sensationens sensationers sensationernas

References[edit]