sensation

Noun

sensation (countable and uncountable, plural sensations)

1. A physical feeling or perception from something that comes into contact with the body; something sensed.
   • 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.1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
   • 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...1921, Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
2. Excitation of sensory organs.
   • Coordinate term: perception
   • In the dead state all is apparently without motion. No agent within indicates design, intelligence, or foresight: there is no respiration; […] no sensation; […]1822, John Barclay, chapter I, in An Inquiry Into the Opinions, Ancient and Modern, Concerning Life and Organization, Edinburgh; London: Bell & Bradfute; Waugh & Innes; G. & W. B. Whittaker, section...
3. A widespread reaction of interest or excitement.
   • “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. […]”1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening &...
   • 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.1937, H. P. Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep
4. (dated, figuratively, uncommon) A remarkable person.
   • You truly are a sensation.

   Synonyms:

   event

5. (archaic, slang) A small serving of gin or sherry.
   • A Sensation . . . . Half-a-glass of sherry.1852, George Butler Earp, Gold Seeker's Manual, page 52
   • 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.'1869, Meliora, volume 12, page 47