feel⋅ing
[fee-ling]
| 1. | the function or the power of perceiving by touch. |
| 2. | physical sensation not connected with sight, hearing, taste, or smell. |
| 3. | a particular sensation of this kind: a feeling of warmth; a feeling of pain. |
| 4. | the general state of consciousness considered independently of particular sensations, thoughts, etc. |
| 5. | a consciousness or vague awareness: a feeling of inferiority. |
| 6. | an emotion or emotional perception or attitude: a feeling of joy; a feeling of sorrow. |
| 7. | capacity for emotion, esp. compassion: to have great feeling for the sufferings of others. |
| 8. | a sentiment; attitude; opinion: The general feeling was in favor of the proposal. |
| 9. | feelings, sensibilities; susceptibilities: to hurt one's feelings. |
| 10. | fine emotional endowment. |
| 11. | (in music, art, etc.)
|
| 12. | sensitive; sentient. |
| 13. | readily affected by emotion; sympathetic: a feeling heart. |
| 14. | indicating or characterized by emotion: a feeling reply to the charge. |
Related forms:
5. Feeling, emotion, passion, sentiment refer to pleasurable or painful sensations experienced when one is stirred to sympathy, anger, fear, love, grief, etc. Feeling is a general term for a subjective point of view as well as for specific sensations: to be guided by feeling rather than by facts; a feeling of sadness, of rejoicing. Emotion is applied to an intensified feeling: agitated by emotion. Passion is strong or violent emotion, often so overpowering that it masters the mind or judgment: stirred to a passion of anger. Sentiment is a mixture of thought and feeling, esp. refined or tender feeling: Recollections are often colored by sentiment. 6. sympathy, empathy, tenderness, sensitivity, sentiment. 12. emotional, tender. 13. impassioned, passionate.
5, 6. apathy. 12. cold.
feel
[feel]
verb, felt, feel⋅ing, noun | 1. | to perceive or examine by touch. |
| 2. | to have a sensation of (something), other than by sight, hearing, taste, or smell: to feel a toothache. |
| 3. | to find or pursue (one's way) by touching, groping, or cautious moves. |
| 4. | to be or become conscious of. |
| 5. | to be emotionally affected by: to feel one's disgrace keenly. |
| 6. | to experience the effects of: The whole region felt the storm. |
| 7. | to have a particular sensation or impression of (often used reflexively and usually fol. by an adjunct or complement): to feel oneself slighted. |
| 8. | to have a general or thorough conviction of; think; believe: I feel he's guilty. |
| 9. | to have perception by touch or by any nerves of sensation other than those of sight, hearing, taste, and smell. |
| 10. | to make examination by touch; grope. |
| 11. | to perceive a state of mind or a condition of body: to feel happy; to feel well. |
| 12. | to have a sensation of being: to feel warm. |
| 13. | to make itself perceived or apparent; seem: How does it feel to be rich? |
| 14. | a quality of an object that is perceived by feeling or touching: the soft feel of cotton. |
| 15. | a sensation of something felt; a vague mental impression or feeling: a feel of winter; a feel of sadness in the air. |
| 16. | the sense of touch: soft to the feel. |
| 17. | native ability or acquired sensitivity: to have a feel for what is right. |
| 18. | Informal. an act or instance of touching with the hand or fingers. |
| 19. | Slang: Vulgar. an act or instance of feeling up. |
| 20. | feel for,
|
| 21. | feel out, to attempt to ascertain (the nature of a situation, someone's attitude, etc.) by indirect or subtle means: Why not feel out the other neighbors' opinions before you make a complaint. |
| 22. | feel up, Slang: Vulgar. to fondle or touch (someone) in a sexual manner. |
| 23. | feel up to, Informal. to feel or be able to; be capable of: He didn't feel up to going to the theater so soon after his recent illness. |
| 24. | cop a feel, Slang: Vulgar. to touch another person's body sexually, often in a quick and surreptitious way. |
| 25. | feel like, Informal. to have a desire for; be favorably disposed to: I don't feel like going out tonight. Do you feel like a movie? |
| 26. | feel like oneself, to be in one's usual frame of mind or state of health: She hasn't been feeling like herself since the accident. Also, feel oneself. |
| 27. | feel no pain. pain (def. 5). |
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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feel (fēl) v. felt (fělt), feel·ing, feels v. tr.
feel outTo try cautiously or indirectly to ascertain the viewpoint or nature of. feel up Vulgar To touch or fondle (someone) sexually. Idiom(s): feel in (one's) bonesTo have an intuition of. Idiom(s): feel like Informal To have an inclination or desire for: felt like going for a walk. Idiom(s): feel like (oneself)To sense oneself as being in one's normal state of health or spirits: I just don't feel like myself today. Idiom(s): feel (one's) oats
[Middle English felen, from Old English fēlan; see pāl- in Indo-European roots.] |
feel·ing (fē'lĭng) n.
Synonyms: These nouns refer to complex and usually strong subjective human response. Although feeling and emotion are sometimes interchangeable, feeling is the more general and neutral: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity" (William Wordsworth). |
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Feeling
Feel"ing\, a. 1. Possessing great sensibility; easily affected or moved; as, a feeling heart. 2. Expressive of great sensibility; attended by, or evincing, sensibility; as, he made a feeling representation of his wrongs.Feeling
Feel"ing\, n. 1. The sense by which the mind, through certain nerves of the body, perceives external objects, or certain states of the body itself; that one of the five senses which resides in the general nerves of sensation distributed over the body, especially in its surface; the sense of touch; nervous sensibility to external objects. Why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined, . . . And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused? --Milton. 2. An act or state of perception by the sense above described; an act of apprehending any object whatever; an act or state of apprehending the state of the soul itself; consciousness. The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. --Shak. 3. The capacity of the soul for emotional states; a high degree of susceptibility to emotions or states of the sensibility not dependent on the body; as, a man of feeling; a man destitute of feeling. 4. Any state or condition of emotion; the exercise of the capacity for emotion; any mental state whatever; as, a right or a wrong feeling in the heart; our angry or kindly feelings; a feeling of pride or of humility. A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind. --Garrick. Tenderness for the feelings of others. --Macaulay. 5. That quality of a work of art which embodies the mental emotion of the artist, and is calculated to affect similarly the spectator. --Fairholt. Syn: Sensation; emotion; passion; sentiment; agitation; opinion. See Emotion, Passion, Sentiment.Cite This Source
Main Entry: feel·ing
Pronunciation: 'fE-li[ng]
Function: noun
1 a : the one of the basic physical senses of which the skin contains the chiefend organs and of which the sensations of touch and temperature are characteristic : TOUCH b : asensation experienced through this sense
2 : an emotional state or reaction
3 : the overall quality of one's awarenessespecially as measured along a pleasantness-unpleasantness continuum
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feeling n.
- The sensation involving perception by touch.
- A physical sensation, as of pain.
- An affective state of consciousness, such as that resulting from emotions, sentiments, or desires.
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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feeling
in psychology, the perception of events within the body, closely related to emotion. The term feeling is a verbal noun denoting the action of the verb to feel, which derives etymologically from the Middle English verb felen, "to perceive by touch, by palpation." It soon came to mean, more generally, to perceive through those senses that are not referred to any special organ. As the known special organs of sense were the ones mediating the perception of the external world, the verb to feel came also to mean the perception of events within the body. Psychologists disagree on the use of the term feeling. The preceding definition accords with that of the American psychologist R.S. Woodworth, who defines the problem of feeling and emotion as that of the individual's "internal state." Many psychologists, however, still follow the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in equating feeling to states of pleasantness and unpleasantness, known in psychology as affect.
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lɪŋ