superˈsensual, a.
1. [super- 4 a.] That is above or beyond (the power of) the senses, or higher than what is perceptible by the senses; also, relating to such things as transcend sense; often = spiritual.
In translations and echoes of Goethe's Faust (Martha's Garden), ‘supersensual sensual’ renders G. übersinnlicher sinnlicher (Freier).
| 1683 E. Hooker Pref. Pordage's Mystic Div. 60 His most agreeabl and supersensual Companion and Fellow-laborer in the Evangelic-angelic Work. Ibid. 99 A Diaphanous Manifesto and perspicuous Demonstration..ever from supersensual sight and intellectual Vision. 1816 Coleridge Statesm. Man. (1817) 360 The paramount gentlemen of Europe..held high converse with Spenser on the idea of supersensual beauty. 1833 tr. Goethe's Faust 148 Thou super-sensual, sensual lover, a chit of a girl leads thee by the nose. 1841 Myers Cath. Th. iii. §12. 45 The Rationalist..measuring supersensual objects only by logical and other terrestrial apparatus. 1865 M. Arnold Ess. Crit. vi. (1875) 248 Supersensual love, having its seat in the soul. 1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 149 Sensual proof of supersensual things. 1874 Tennyson Merlin & V. 107 Such a supersensual sensual bond As that gray cricket chirpt of at our hearth. 1885 Stevenson in Contemp. Rev. Apr. 550 [The writer's] pattern, which is to please the supersensual ear, is yet addressed..to the demands of logic. |
b. absol. with the.
| 1858 Lytton What will he do? vii. xxiii, In our inmost hearts there is a sentiment which links the ideal of beauty with the Supersensual. 1869 Lecky Europ. Mor. II. iv. 106 [Religion] allures them to the supersensual and the ideal. |
2. [super- 9 a.] Extremely sensual. rare.
In quot. 1835 a misunderstanding of Goethe's übersinnlich (see note on sense 1 and quot. 1833).
| 1835 R. Talbot tr. Goethe's Faust (1839) 422 Thou sport of super-sensual desire! A little Gypsy leads thee by the nose. 1867 Sir E. B. Lytton in Lett. Robt. 1st Earl of Lytton (1906) I. ix. 207 The ‘Gyges and Candaules’ have [sic] some dangerous supersensual lines which I advise you to reconsider. It will not do for you to be ‘Swinburnian’. |
Hence superˈsensualism, supersensual thought or doctrine; ˌsupersensuaˈlistic a., of or pertaining to supersensualism; superˈsensually adv., in a supersensual manner.
| 1683 E. Hooker Pref. Pordage's Mystic Div. 66 The veri Spirit of the Mind is elevated, supersensually and superrationally sublimed. a 1861 Cunningham Hist. Theol. (1864) II. xxiii. 191 The neology of Germany combining easily with a sort of mystical supersensualism was fitted to interest the feelings. 1865 Reader 22 July 89/3 All merely supersensualistic theories. 1906 Sir O. Lodge in Hibbert Jrnl. Jan. 320 It [sc. Christianity] postulates a supersensually visible and tangible vehicle or mode of manifestation. |