[syn: sense, sensation, sentience, sentiency, sensory faculty]
3. the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness;
- Example: "gave sentience to slugs and newts"- Richard Eberhart
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sentience \Sen"ti*ence\, Sentiency \Sen"ti*en*cy\, n. [See
Sentient, Sentence.]
The quality or state of being sentient; esp., the quality or
state of having sensation. --G. H. Lewes.
[1913 Webster]
An example of harmonious action between the
intelligence and the sentiency of the mind. --Earle.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
sentience
n 1: state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness; "the
crash intruded on his awareness" [syn: awareness,
sentience]
2: the faculty through which the external world is apprehended;
"in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of
smell and hearing" [syn: sense, sensation, sentience,
sentiency, sensory faculty]
3: the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or
undifferentiated consciousness; "gave sentience to slugs and
newts"- Richard Eberhart [ant: insentience]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
31 Moby Thesaurus words for "sentience":
affectibility, alertness, all-night vigil, consciousness,
impressibility, impressionability, insomnia, insomniac,
insomnolence, insomnolency, lidless vigil, limen,
openness to sensation, perceptibility, physical sensibility,
readiness of feeling, receptiveness, receptivity, restlessness,
sensation level, sensibility, sensibleness, sentiency,
sleeplessness, susceptibility, susceptivity,
threshold of sensation, tossing and turning, vigil, wake,
wakefulness