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somatic sensation

somatic sensation

7.4
A feeling in your body that tells you about touch or where your arms and legs are
  • noun
  • /səˈmætɪk ˌsɛnˈseɪʃən/
  • Specialized
translation icon : sensación somática
  • When she touched the hot stove, the somatic sensation made her quickly pull her hand away.

Examples

  • During the meditation session, participants were encouraged to focus on their somatic sensations to enhance their mindfulness.

  • Embodied awareness involves including our bodily-based or somatic sensations in awareness as one acts in and makes sense of the world.

    Academic text (2000)
  • The athlete relied on somatic sensations to adjust his posture during the challenging yoga poses.

Synonyms

somataesthesis
vssomatic sensation
  • Specialized
9.9

To feel touch, know where your body parts are, and notice feelings inside your body

is the same concept but expressed as a general perception term
somatic sense
vssomatic sensation
  • Specialized
8.6

The ability to feel touch, pain, temperature, body position, and internal organs

is the same idea framed as the general perception of bodily sensations
somesthesia
vssomatic sensation
  • Specialized
9.9

The sense of feeling touch, temperature, pain, and body position

is broader, highlighting overall bodily perception rather than specific listed senses
somatesthesia
vssomatic sensation
  • Specialized
9.9

The ability to feel touch, body position, and feelings inside the body

frames the same domain as overall perception rather than as a specific process
somatosense
vssomatic sensation
  • Specialized
9.9

A body sense that lets you feel touch, pressure, temperature, pain, and body position

covers overall sensation across those individual sense channels rather than each sense
protopathy
vssomatic sensation
  • Specialized
9.9

A basic sense that lets you feel pain and temperature

includes those basic inputs plus body position and internal visceral feelings

Antonyms

19 4.6

Loss of feeling in a body part often caused by cold, pressure, or nerve damage

How Intense

pain
1.0
somatic sensation
  • Specialized
7.4
ache
92 1.3
tingle
26 3.3
tickle
39 1.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

somatic + sensation

The meaning 'perception of bodily sensations' is directly and transparently derived from 'somatic' (bodily) + 'sensation' (physical feeling). This adjective+noun composition is literal and cross-linguistically common, so a learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Somatic sensation comes from words meaning 'body' (somatic) and 'feeling' (sensation), so it literally means a feeling in the body. That's why it is used to talk about touch, body position, or internal feelings like pain.