Meaning & use
synaesthetic
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparablemedicaltechnical
Relating to synaesthesia, a condition in which stimulating one sense automatically triggers another, such as seeing colors when hearing sounds.
Grammar: Usually used before a noun: a synaesthetic experience.
Patterns
- a synaesthetic experience
- a synaesthetic person
She has a synaesthetic response to music and sees colored shapes.
The study recruited synaesthetic volunteers who taste words.
His synaesthetic memory links each number to a color.
adjectivebefore a nounliterary
Describing language or art that combines impressions from different senses, such as a warm color or a sharp taste in music.
Grammar: Often applied to writing or art: synaesthetic imagery.
Patterns
- synaesthetic imagery
- synaesthetic poetry
The poet uses synaesthetic imagery, calling a sound bright.
The gallery offers a synaesthetic show combining light, scent and music.
Critics praised the film's synaesthetic atmosphere.
Common combinations
- synaesthetic experience
- The concert gave the audience a synaesthetic experience.
- synaesthetic imagery
- Her poems rely on synaesthetic imagery.
- synaesthetic response
- He described a synaesthetic response to the painting.
- synaesthetic perception
- Synaesthetic perception affects about one person in a hundred.
- synaesthetic artist
- The synaesthetic artist paints what she hears.
Synonyms and how they differ
- synesthetic
- Synesthetic is the American spelling and has exactly the same meaning.
- multisensory
- Multisensory means using several senses together, but does not imply they automatically trigger one another.
- cross-modal
- Cross-modal is a scientific term for interaction between senses, and is more neutral than synaesthetic.
Word family
- synaesthesia noun
- the condition where one sense triggers another
- synaesthete noun
- a person who has synaesthesia
- anaesthetic noun
- a drug that removes feeling, a similar-looking word
- aesthetic adjective
- concerned with beauty
Commonly confused: synaesthetic or anaesthetic? synaesthetic or aesthetic?
synaesthetic vs anaesthetic
An anaesthetic is a drug that blocks pain or feeling, while synaesthetic describes the blending of senses.
synaesthetic vs aesthetic
Aesthetic means concerned with beauty or art, while synaesthetic refers to mixing of the senses.
Practice
For the ___ painter, every musical note appeared to her as a different shade of blue.
Choose one answer.
Synaesthetic describes someone whose senses blend, such as seeing sounds as colors. Anaesthetic relates to drugs that remove feeling, and aesthetic means concerned with beauty, so they are tempting but wrong.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “synaesthetic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.