usage abusage

Question

two words, the concepts of which vexes me for long are sensual, sensuous.  where do they overlap in meaning, where do they differ?  clive, grammar_geek or anybody please!  incho

Davkett · Accepted Answer

Without looking these up in the dictionary, I'd say sensual refers to the erotic and sensuous refers to the [five]senses. The first has a sexual connotation, the second does not.

Inchoateknowledge · Answer

thanks for your short and sweet answer.
for me sensual has negative, sensuous positive connotation.
if you indulge in what appeals to your senses and it is a 'forbidden fruit', i use sensual - sensuous otherwise.
i am just curious how others, mainly natives, percieve their refinements.
anybody else?

inchoate

BarbaraPA · Answer

Oh gosh, this is my first direct request. Do I get paid double??

I really like Merriam-Webster's online dictionary (www.m-w.com) because it often has usage notes that I find helpful. Here is what it says:

synonyms SENSUOUS, SENSUAL, LUXURIOUS, VOLUPTUOUS mean relating to or providing pleasure through gratification of the senses. SENSUOUS implies gratification of the senses for the sake of aesthetic pleasure <the sensuous delights of great music>. SENSUAL tends to imply the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of the physical appetites as ends in themselves <a life devoted to sensual pleasures>. LUXURIOUS suggests the providing of or indulgence of sensuous pleasure inducing bodily ease and languor <a luxurious hotel>. VOLUPTUOUS implies more strongly an abandonment especially to sensual pleasure <a voluptuous feast>.

I do associate sensual with sexual, but probably because they sound more alike - although it comports with the concept of "physical appetites" described above. But in no way do I see it as a negative word.

Davkett · Answer

One thing I noticed in Merriam-Webster is that one of the synonyms for sensual is carnal, but carnal is not listed as a synonym for sensuous.

Marius Hancu · Answer

OK, this is from the unabridged Merriam-Webster, even better

but you'll have to pay for it:-[[:(]

Main Entry: sen·su·ous

synonyms SENSUOUS, SENSUAL, LUXURIOUS, VOLUPTUOUS, SYBARITIC, and EPICUREAN can mean, in common, having to do with or providing gratification of the senses. SENSUOUS and SENSUAL, though interchangeable in applying to things of the senses as opposed to spirit or intellect, are often used to carry a distinction: SENSUAL in such case usually implies gratification in the sense of indulgence of appetite <acute sensitivity to the sensual and intellectual pleasures that make life so abundantly worth living -- Anthony West> <the richer tobacco enthusiasts want not merely the sensual pleasure their pipe brings -- Irish Digest> <a sensual person given to lying on soft couches and overeating> SENSUOUS can imply less an indulgence of appetite than an aesthetic gratification or delight as in beauty of color, sound, or artistic form and usually carries a weaker overtone of carnality than does SENSUAL<some philosophers insist that most of the arts are sensuous and hence that beauty is sensuous, but W. T. Stace maintains that ... beauty must be admitted to display itself in internal percepts -- D.H.Rankin> <a sensuous love of food and drink and gaiety -- William Soskin> <the cat ... lolling before the fire, stretched in a paroxysm of sensuous happiness upon the hearth rug -- F.A.Swinnerton> <poetry took on a new and bizarre intricacy of sensuous decoration and symbolic metaphor -- Douglas Bush> <he eyed the fresh linen laid upon a yellow-painted chair with sensuous delight -- Elinor Wylie> LUXURIOUS implies indulgence in or provision of either sensual or sensuous pleasures especially of a kind inducing a pleasant languor, a delightful ease especially of body, or a grateful peace of mind <in her luxurious bed, beneath the satin coverlet, which was scented with lavender -- Ellen Glasgow> <sat down to a long, luxurious smoke -- Rudyard Kipling> <turned his head upon the high cushioned back of his chair and closed his eyes for one luxurious instant -- Elinor Wylie> VOLUPTUOUS implies a stronger abandonment to sense pleasure especially for its own sake than does LUXURIOUS<the core of [his] genius is voluptuous, surcharged with indolence and passion -- Cyril Connolly> <a sullen voluptuous mouth -- Edmund Wilson> <Cleopatra -- fierce, voluptuous, passionate, tender, wicked, terrible, and full of poisonous and rapturous enchantment -- Nathaniel Hawthorne> SYBARITIC implies luxuriousness and voluptuousness of an extreme, often overrefined sort and especially indulgence in rare and choice foods and in surroundings calculated to provide a maximum of bodily gratification <a life of pleasure, folly, misfortune, vice, and sybaritic elegance -- Philip Sherrard> <imagining the feel of the long silky fleece against bare toes makes one shiver with sybaritic pleasure -- New Yorker> <a sybaritic banquet of seven courses, each with its own wine or liqueur> EPICUREAN in this context can commonly imply sensuality or voluptuousness or, when nearer to an original sense, a sensuous, often fastidious delight in refined physical pleasures, often of eating or drinking but sometimes in intellectual pleasures <out-of-season delicacies, wines of rare vintage, epicurean specialties of a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year chef -- J.J.Floherty> <drinking his tea with epicurean satisfaction -- J.C.Powys>

MrPedantic · Answer

According to my dictionary, "sensuous" was first used by Milton, to avoid the connotations of "sensual".

MrP

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