sentience
Americannoun
noun
-
the state or quality of being sentient; awareness
-
sense perception not involving intelligence or mental perception; feeling
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of sentience
First recorded in 1830–40; senti(ent) + -ence
Explanation
The ability to feel and perceive is sentience. The sentience of cows, pigs, and chickens is one reason that some people become vegetarians. In the 18th century, Western philosophers defined sentience as the ability to feel, which they contrasted with the ability to reason or think. For Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, sentience is something that's present to some degree in all beings, human and non-human. The exact definition of the word varies from "consciousness" to simply "the ability to feel pain and pleasure." The Latin root of sentience is sentire, "to feel or perceive."
Vocabulary lists containing sentience
Dracula
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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates wins the National Book Award
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for July 3–July 9, 2021
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Even if we can’t be sure something is conscious, we might err on the side of caution by assuming it is – what philosopher Jonathan Birch calls the precautionary principle for sentience.
From Science Daily • Jun. 5, 2026
“As we improve the software, you can feel the sentience growing in the car. It feels alive.”
From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026
Soon, they had philosophical discussions about AI’s potential for sentience.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026
“Claims around consciousness and sentience are a tactic to sell you on AI,” Bender and Hanna write.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 20, 2025
He had loved the library, and had felt, as a boy, as though it had a kind of sentience, and perhaps loved him back.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
