visceral experience

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A strong event or moment that you feel in your body rather than understand with your mind.

   Grammar: Countable: you can talk about a visceral experience or several visceral experiences.

   Patterns

   • a visceral experience of something
   • have a visceral experience
   • a visceral experience for someone

   Seeing the ocean for the first time was a visceral experience that left her shaking.

   The film is not clever; it aims to give you a visceral experience of fear.

   For many soldiers, the first night of combat is a deeply visceral experience.

2. 2nouncountable or uncountablefigurative

   A way of understanding something through strong feeling or instinct instead of careful thought.

   Grammar: Often used in the pattern 'a visceral experience of something' when describing a whole way of knowing.

   Patterns

   • a visceral experience of something
   • something is a visceral experience

   His book describes grief as a visceral experience of loss, not a set of ideas.

   Music can give us a visceral experience of time passing.

Word forms

Common combinations

a deeply visceral experience

Losing a parent is a deeply visceral experience.

a visceral experience of fear

The roller coaster gives you a visceral experience of fear.

have a visceral experience

Visitors have a visceral experience of the storm inside the museum.

a visceral reaction

She had a visceral reaction to the smell of smoke.

Synonyms and how they differ

gut feeling

Use this for a quiet instinct about what to do; a visceral experience is stronger and more physical.

emotional experience

This is broader and can be calm or happy; a visceral experience always feels physical and intense.

Opposites

Word family

viscerally adverb

In a way that comes from strong physical feeling: she reacted viscerally.

visceral adjective

Relating to strong feelings in the body rather than the mind.

Commonly confused: visceral experience or viral?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “visceral experience”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

Explore more words