palpable sense of relief
- noun
:
sensación palpable de alivio
- There was a palpable sense of relief in the village, for his mother had been much loved and the ending had been too long in coming.
Examples
-
After four days at the front, I felt a palpable sense of relief when we were ordered back into Kuwait.
-
I saw only a few changes, but I felt an enormous collective release of tension, a palpable sense of relief.
Academic text (1995) -
As the counts were read and it became clear that there would be no convictions, there was a palpable sense of relief among the officers.
Synonyms
440
1.0
A feeling of comfort when pain or worry goes away
37
2.1
A long soft breath you make when you stop feeling worried
Antonyms
How Relieved
Surface Forms
Morphology
palpable + sense + of + relief
The meaning is directly compositional: 'palpable' (very noticeable or almost touchable) modifies 'sense of relief' (the feeling when worry or pain ends), so the overall meaning is a very noticeable feeling of relief. This follows a standard adjective + noun phrase pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Palpable sense of relief comes from the word palpable, which means you can almost touch or feel something, and the image is of a heavy weight lifting from a room so everyone breathes easier. That's why the phrase means a very strong, 'obvious' feeling of relief that seems to be felt by everyone.