sensualist

American  

[sen-shoo-uh-list] / ˈsɛn ʃu ə lɪst /

noun

1. a person given to the indulgence of the senses or appetites.

2. a person who holds the doctrine of sensationalism.

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Other Word Forms

• nonsensualistic
  adjective
• sensualistic
  adjective
• unsensualistic
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of sensualist

First recorded in 1655–65; sensual + -ist

Example Sentences

And Sorrentino, a dedicated sensualist, does allow himself some lighter touches, including, toward the end, a fanciful visual metaphor for a burdened man’s spirit that maybe only he could get away with.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 13, 2025

Rajamouli is a cinematic sensualist, something not often seen or appreciated in the action genre.

From Salon • Jun. 8, 2022

The odes are so beautiful — and Keats’s image as a sensualist, an effete Romantic aesthete, so firmly established — that it is easy to overlook how philosophically accomplished and profound they are.

From Washington Post • Feb. 25, 2021

Mr. Gyllenhaal’s Seurat may be routinely described as cold and distant, but he’s unmistakably a sensualist, too.

From New York Times • Feb. 23, 2017

That he has failed of the highest fulfilment of his high vocation is certain, but he was neither Epicurean nor sensualist, if we consider his life as a whole.

From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Fuller, Margaret