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Innertide Posted 14 years ago
Vocabulary

sensual & sensuous?

Hi, Is there a difference between "sensual" and "sensuous " in terms of usage ?
thanks for your time.
Hamed
  

Top answer

The words sensual and sensuous are frequently used interchangeably to mean ‘gratifying the senses’, especially in a sexual sense. Strictly speaking, this goes against a traditional distinction, by which sensuous is a more neutral term, meaning ‘relating to the senses rather than the intellect’, as in swimming is a beautiful, sensuous experience, while sensual relates to gratification of the senses, especially sexually, as in a sensual massage. In fact the word sensuous is thought to have been invented by Milton (1641) in a deliberate attempt to avoid the sexual overtones of sensual.

— Prajwalkr

  • The words sensual and sensuous are frequently used interchangeably to mean ‘gratifying the senses’, especially in a sexual sense.
  • Strictly speaking, this goes against a traditional distinction, by which sensuous is a more neutral term, meaning ‘relating to the senses rather than the intellect’, as in swimming is a beautiful, sensuous experience, while sensual relates to gratification of the senses, especially sexually, as in a sensual massage.
  • In fact the word sensuous is thought to have been invented by Milton (1641) in a deliberate attempt to avoid the sexual overtones of sensual.
  • In practice, the connotations are such that it is difficult to use sensuous in this sense.
  • While traditionalists struggle to maintain a distinction, the evidence from the Oxford English Corpus and elsewhere suggests that the ‘neutral’ use of sensuous is rare in modern English.
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3 Answers
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The words sensual and sensuous are frequently used interchangeably to mean ‘gratifying the senses’, especially in a sexual sense. Strictly speaking, this goes against a traditional distinction, by which sensuous is a more neutral term, meaning ‘relating to the senses rather than the intellect’, as in swimming is a beautiful, sensuous experience, while sensual relates to gratifica
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Thanks indeed Prajwal, but if you were to fill in the blank in the following sentence, which one would you pick ?

The philosopher Plato believed that a process of reason, independent of ............ (sensual/sensuous) information, could help a man arrive at the true nature of reality.

Hamed
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