sensory
adjective
Simple meaning
Conveying nerve impulses from the sense organs to the nerve centers.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehnsereeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛnsɚi
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.
adjective
Of the physical senses or sensation.
neuroanatomy
Conveying nerve impulses from the sense organs to the nerve centers.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (neuroanatomy) Conveying nerve impulses from the sense organs to the nerve centers.
Used this way, sensory is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- 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
- 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 sensory
- “The art exhibit offered a rich sensory experience with light and sound.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A form of psychological torture inflicted by depriving the victim of all sensory input.
Focal epilepsy initiated by somatosensory phenomena.
The faculty through which the external world is apprehended.
A nerve fiber that carries impulses toward the central nervous system.
A long stiff hair growing from the snout or brow of most mammals as e.g. a cat.
A nerve that passes impulses from receptors toward or to the central nervous system.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An area of the cortex including the precentral gyrus and the postcentral gyrus and combining sensory and motor functions.
An area of the cortex including the precentral gyrus and the postcentral gyrus and combining sensory and motor functions.
The faculty of bodily perception.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of the physical senses or sensation
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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.