sensuality

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sensualite,^[2][3][4] partly borrowed from Old French sensualité, the Anglo-Norman and Middle French form, and partly borrowed from Late Latin sēnsuālitās (“capacity for sensation, sensibility”).^[5][6][3][7] The French word is recorded at the end of the 12th century in Old French as sensualiteit,^[5] and the Anglo-Norman form from the early 13th century, in the sense "ability to perceive through the senses".^[8] The Latin noun, first found in Tertullian in the early 3rd century, is formed from sēnsuālis (“endowed with feeling, sensitive”) and the suffix -tās,^[5][3][6] and the adjective comes from sensus (“feeling”), the source of sense.^[3] The OED compares Catalan sensualitat (14th century), Spanish sensualidad, Portuguese sensualidade and Italian sensualità (before 1342).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The aspect of human nature concerned with the senses rather than the intellect or the spirit; the animal nature of humans: about 1390, in Chaucer's Parson's Tale,^[5][2] where "God and reson and sensualitee and the body of man ben so ordeyned" that each rules the next.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Chaucer used the word nine times.^[9] In Middle English it already covered the natural capacity for sensation, regarded as a lower power of the soul, physical desire or lust, and even the body itself.^[2][5] In religious writing from about 1440 to 1739 it meant the fleshly side of human nature as a source of evil.^[5][3] From about 1425, in Lydgate, it also meant physical pleasure, especially sexual pleasure or that of food and drink, a sense with a mainly disapproving tone in early use.^[5] Lydgate also used it for worldliness, absorption in temporal concerns, a sense that lasted until 1613,^[5] and in the 1530s it briefly meant wilful obstinacy.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as devotion to the senses and addiction to "brutal and corporal pleasures", quoting Shakespeare's "savage sensuality".^[10] The neutral sense, the quality of being pleasing to the senses, is recorded only from 1894, in a letter of Lafcadio Hearn.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – the side of human nature concerned with the senses, in Chaucer.^[5][2]
• before 1425 – the physical body (obsolete by 1475).^[5][2]
• c. 1425 – physical pleasure, especially sexual, or of food and drink, in Lydgate.^[5]
• c. 1440 – the carnal elements of human nature, as a source of evil (obsolete by 1739).^[5]
• c. 1450 – worldliness (obsolete by 1613).^[5]
• 1477 – plural, sensual pleasures and pursuits.^[5]
• 1536 – wilful obstinacy (only until 1544).^[5]
• 1894 – the quality of being pleasing to the senses.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being sensual; enjoyment or expression of physical, especially sexual, pleasure: the sensuality of the dancers' movements.^[11][6][5]
2. Excessive indulgence in physical pleasures.^[11][6]
3. The physical or animal side of human nature, as opposed to the intellect or spirit.^[6][5]
4. The quality of being pleasing to the senses.^[5]
5. (obsolete, 1440–1739) The lusts of the flesh.^[6][5]

Word family

• hypersensuality
• nonsensuality

Related words

• sensual
• sense
• sensuous
• sensualist

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins