sensation

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

• enPR: sĕn-sā'shən, IPA^(key): /sɛnˈseɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

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:

     “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. (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.'

• Thesaurus:sensation

• sensational
• sensation fiction
• sensation novel
• sense
• sensible
• sensitive
• sensory
• sensual

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

• sensation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “sensation”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• sensation at OneLook Dictionary Search

• Estonians, insonates

From Medieval Latin sensationem, accusative of sensatio, from Latin sensus.

• IPA^(key): /sɑ̃.sa.sjɔ̃/

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sensation f (plural sensations)

1. sensation

• faire sensation
• sensation forte

• “sensation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

sensation c

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

   Synonym: sinnesintryck

• sensation in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• sensation in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• sensation in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)