Wiktionary

sensory

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From sense +‎ -ory.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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sensory (not comparable)

  1. Of the physical senses or sensation.
    • 1665, Thomas Bartholin, chapter VI, in anonymous translator, Bartholinus Anatomy, London: Nich. Culpeper and Abdiah Cole, translation of Anatomia (in New Latin), page 142:
      The Species of things are perceived rather there whereto they are carried. But every ſenſory Nerve each in its place carries the Species to the beginning of the ſpinal Marrow, and therefore each in their place are judged and received by the Soul, in the beginning of the ſpinal Marrow.
    • 1873, Alpheus Spring Packard, “Hints on the Ancestry of Insects”, in Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses, Salem: Naturalists’ Agency, page 174:
      It is evident that in the ancestor of these two groups the first pair of appendages became early adapted for purely sensory purposes, and were naturally projected far in advance of the mouth, forming the antennæ.
    • 1991, Tetsuo Matsui, Susumu Kato, Susan E. Smith, “Biology and Potential Use of Pacific Grenadier, Coryphaenoides acrolepis, off California”, in Marine Fisheries Review‎[1], volume 52, number 3, →ISSN, page 13:
      Findings of the sensory analysis panel at NWFSC [the Northwest Fisheries Science Center], which tested and classified flesh characteristics of both Pacific and giant grenadier, are averaged and summarized in Table 10.
  2. (neuroanatomy) Conveying nerve impulses from the sense organs to the nerve centers.
    Synonym: afferent
    sensory neurons

Usage notes

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Prefix combining form is sensori-, as in sensorimotor.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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sensory (plural sensories)

  1. (biology, dated) The sensorium.[1]
    • 1704, Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks, 3rd edition, London: W. and J. Innys, published 1721, page 344:
      Is not the Senſory of Animals that place to which the ſenſitive Subſtance is preſent, and into which the ſenſible Species of Things are carried through the Nerves and Brain, that there they may be perceived by their immediate preſence to that ſubſtance ?
  2. (obsolete) An organ or faculty of sense.
    • a. 1626, Francis Bacon, “Consent of Visibles, and Audibles”, in Sylva Sylvarvm: Or, A Naturall Historie, 3rd edition, London: William Rawley, published 1631, page 68:
      BOth of them ſpread themſelues in Round, and fill a whole Floare or Orbe, vnto certaine Limits : and are carried a great way : And doe languiſh and leſſen by degrees, according to the Diſtance of the Obiects from the Senſories.
    • 1689–90, John Evelyn, edited by William Bray, Memoirs of John Evelyn, new edition, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, published 1827, page 292:
      Dr. Burnet, late Bishop of Sarum, on 4 Heb. v. 13, anatomically describing the texture of the eye […] so God who made this sensorie, did with the greatest ease and at once see all that was don thro’ the vast universe, even to the very thought as well as action.

Derived terms

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References

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  1. ^ “sensory”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

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