emotion
noun
Simple meaning
A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihmohshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈmoʊʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data.
A reaction by a non-human organism with behavioral and physiological elements similar to a person's response.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data.
Used this way, emotion is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use emotion
- “Happiness is a common human emotion that everyone experiences sometimes.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Determined or actuated by emotion rather than reason.
In an emotional manner.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Give verbal or other expression to one's feelings.
An emotional response that has been acquired by conditioning.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The arousal of strong emotions and emotional behavior.
Any mental disorder not caused by detectable organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major disturbance of emotions is predominant.
Any mental disorder not caused by detectable organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major disturbance of emotions is predominant.
A person subject to strong states of emotion.
Someone who is seemingly indifferent to emotions.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.