ˈsenchəwəs adjective
Etymology: Latin sensu s + English -ous
1. : of or relating to the senses or sensible objects : addressing the senses : suggesting pictures or images of sense
to this poetry would be made precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous , and passionate — John Milton
2. : characterized by sense impressions or imagery addressing the senses
sensuous description
a purely sensuous satisfaction
3. : producing an agreeable effect on the senses : conducive to physical comfort or content
mild sensuous breezes
4. : highly susceptible to influence through the senses
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