sense organ

American  

noun

1. a specialized bodily structure that receives or is sensitive to internal or external stimuli; receptor.

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sense organ British  

noun

1. a structure in animals that is specialized for receiving external or internal stimuli and transmitting them in the form of nervous impulses to the brain

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sense organ Scientific  

/ sĕns /

1. In animals, an organ or part that is sensitive to a stimulus, as of sound, touch, or light. Sense organs include the eye, ear, and nose, as well as the taste buds on the tongue.

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Etymology

Origin of sense organ

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

"It seems inevitable that differences in female responses are often due to female mechanisms of analyses of signals that are the result of properties of her sense organs and her nervous system."

From Science Daily

Spiders don't have ears, but sense sound in vibrations using specialized sense organs in their eight legs.

From Science Daily

When musicians talk about ear, they don't mean the sense organ itself so much as the brain's ability to perceive, distinguish, and understand what the ear has heard.

From Literature

Unlike hearing, seeing, or tasting, the sense of time is not mediated by a specific sense organ but rather is "embodied" in a more all-encompassing way.

From Salon

He encounters thought control, vampiric personality absorption, music that kills, colors beyond the usual spectrum, various new sense organs, the truth about Nightspore and Krag and, above all, the meaning and necessity of pain.

From Washington Post