| feeling | 1. Possessing great sensibility; easily affected or moved; as, a feeling heart. 2. Expressive of great sensibility; attended by, or evincing, sensibility; as, he made a feeling representation of his wrongs. 1. The sense by which the mind, through certain nerves of the body, perceives external objects, or certain states of the body itself; that one of the five senses which resides in the general nerves of sensation distributed over the body, especially in its surface; the sense of touch; nervous sensibility to external objects. "Why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined, . . . And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused?" (Milton) 2. An act or state of perception by the sense above described; an act of apprehending any object whatever; an act or state of apprehending the state of the soul itself; consciousness. "The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse." (Shak) 3. The capacity of the soul for emotional states; a high degree of susceptibility to emotions or states of the sensibility not dependent on the body; as, a man of feeling; a man destitute of feeling. 4. Any state or condition of emotion; the exercise of the capacity for emotion; any mental state whatever; as, a right or a wrong feeling in the heart; our angry or kindly feelings; a feeling of pride or of humility. "A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind." (Garrick) "Tenderness for the feelings of others." (Macaulay) 5. That quality of a work of art which embodies the mental emotion of the artist, and is calculated to affect similarly the spectator. (Fairholt) Synonym: Sensation, emotion, passion, sentiment, agitation, opinion. See Emotion, Passion, Sentiment. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| feeling tone | The mental state (pleasure, repugnance, etc.) that accompanies every act or thought. Synonym: affective tone, emotional tone, affectivity. Fundamental tone, the component of lowest frequency in a complex tone. (05 Mar 2000) |