SENSUAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sensual mean? 

• SENSUAL (adjective)
  The adjective SENSUAL has 2 senses:

1. marked by the appetites and passions of the body

2. sexually exciting or gratifying

  Familiarity information: SENSUAL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SENSUAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by the appetites and passions of the body

Synonyms:

animal; carnal; fleshly; sensual

Context example:

music is the only sensual pleasure without vice

Similar:

physical (involving the body as distinguished from the mind or spirit)

Derivation:

sensuality; sensualness (desire for sensual pleasures)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Sexually exciting or gratifying

Synonyms:

sensual; sultry

Context example:

a sultry dance

Similar:

hot (extended meanings; especially of psychological heat; marked by intensity or vehemence especially of passion or enthusiasm)

Derivation:

sensualness (desire for sensual pleasures)

 Context examples 

With Venus in sensual Taurus, which goes so beautifully with your Capricorn Sun, buy some new items for your wardrobe and step out.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

A disorder characterized by abnormal sensual experience with the taste of foodstuffs; it can be related to a decrease in the sense of smell.

(Dysgeusia, NCI Thesaurus/CTCAE)

So I carried away a last impression of his sensual, good-humoured face, his high cravat, and his broad leather thighs.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Best of all, Venus, the love-me planet, will be in Taurus from March 4 to April 3, a glorious, sensual place for Venus to be for you.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but then, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)