kinesthesia
Plural: kinesthesias
Noun
- the perception of body position and movement and muscular tensions etc
- the ability to feel movements of the limbs and body
- Sensation or perception of motion.
- The perception of the movement of one's own body, its limbs and muscles etc.
- Sensation or perception of motion.
- A spectator's perception of the motion of a performer, or, the effect of the motion of a scene on the spectator.
- Sensation or perception of motion.
- Proprioception or static position sense; the perception of the position and posture of the body; also, more broadly, including the motion of the body as well. See usage notes below.
Origin / Etymology
From kine- + -esthesia. Compare kinesthesis and Greek κιναισθησία (kinaisthisía).
Notes
If this word were borrowed on fully traditional principles it would be cinesthesia (or cinaesthesia); compare cinema from the same root. But more often this Greek root is spelled and pronounced with a k, and in the case of kinesthesia this avoids inconvenient homophony with synaesthesia, the sensation of one type of perception as another (e.g. the perception of smells as colors). Nevertheless the words are still occasionally confused; e.g. http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0849303710&id=_u4sZjHHwCYC&pg=PA581&lpg=PA581&dq=cinesthesia&sig=gFEo5BGoW75XcUVTk44aHGKgGuc.
Synonyms
feeling of movement, kinaesthesia, kinaesthesis, kinesthesis, kinesthetics, muscle sense, sense of movement, proprioception
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 18
kinesthesia: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordkinesthesia: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
kinesthesia: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary