Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

sen·sa·tion       (sěn-sā'shən)  Pronunciation Key  n.   A perception associated with stimulation of a sense organ or with a specific body condition: the sensation of heat; a visual sensation. The faculty to feel or perceive; physical sensibility: The patient has very little sensation left in the right leg. An indefinite generalized body feeling: a sensation of lightness. A state of intense public interest and excitement: "The purser made a sensation as sailors like to do, by predicting a storm" (Evelyn Waugh). A cause of such interest and excitement. See Synonyms at wonder. A state of heightened interest or emotion: "The anticipation produced in me a sensation somewhat between bliss and fear" (James Weldon Johnson). A state of intense public interest and excitement: "The purser made a sensation as sailors like to do, by predicting a storm" (Evelyn Waugh). A cause of such interest and excitement. See Synonyms at wonder. [French, from Old French, from Medieval Latin sēnsātiō, sēnsātiōn-, from Late Latin sēnsātus, gifted with sense; see sensate.]

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
sensation 

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

sensation
noun
1.	an unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation; "a sensation of touch"
2.	someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field
3.	a general feeling of excitement and heightened interest; "anticipation produced in me a sensation somewhere between hope and fear"
4.	a state of widespread public excitement and interest; "the news caused a sensation"
5.	the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; "in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing" [syn: sense]

American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

sensation sen·sa·tion (sěn-sā'shən)
n.

1. A perception associated with stimulation of a sense organ or with a specific body condition.
2. The faculty to feel or perceive; physical sensibility.
3. An indefinite, generalized body feeling.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Sensation

Sen*sa"tion\, n. [Cf. F. sensation. See Sensate.]

1. (Physiol.) An impression, or the consciousness of an impression, made upon the central nervous organ, through the medium of a sensory or afferent nerve or one of the organs of sense; a feeling, or state of consciousness, whether agreeable or disagreeable, produced either by an external object (stimulus), or by some change in the internal state of the body.

Perception is only a special kind of knowledge, and sensation a special kind of feeling. . . . Knowledge and feeling, perception and sensation, though always coexistent, are always in the inverse ratio of each other. --Sir W. Hamilton.

2. A purely spiritual or psychical affection; agreeable or disagreeable feelings occasioned by objects that are not corporeal or material.

3. A state of excited interest or feeling, or that which causes it.

The sensation caused by the appearance of that work is still remembered by many. --Brougham.

Syn: Perception.

Usage: Sensation, Perseption. The distinction between these words, when used in mental philosophy, may be thus stated; if I simply smell a rose, I have a sensation; if I refer that smell to the external object which occasioned it, I have a perception. Thus, the former is mere feeling, without the idea of an object; the latter is the mind's apprehension of some external object as occasioning that feeling. "Sensation properly expresses that change in the state of the mind which is produced by an impression upon an organ of sense (of which change we can conceive the mind to be conscious, without any knowledge of external objects). Perception, on the other hand, expresses the knowledge or the intimations we obtain by means of our sensations concerning the qualities of matter, and consequently involves, in every instance, the notion of externality, or outness, which it is necessary to exclude in order to seize the precise import of the word sensation." --Fleming.