Feel"ing, a. 1.
Possessing great sensibility; easily affected or moved; as, a
feeling heart.
2. Expressive of great sensibility; attended
by, or evincing, sensibility; as, he made a feeling
representation of his wrongs.
Feel"ing, n. 1.
The sense by which the mind, through certain nerves of the body,
perceives external objects, or certain states of the body itself;
that one of the five senses which resides in the general nerves of
sensation distributed over the body, especially in its surface; the
sense of touch; nervous sensibility to external objects.
Why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined, . . .
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused?
Milton.
2. An act or state of perception by the sense
above described; an act of apprehending any object whatever; an act
or state of apprehending the state of the soul itself;
consciousness.
The apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Shak.
3. The capacity of the soul for emotional
states; a high degree of susceptibility to emotions or states of the
sensibility not dependent on the body; as, a man of feeling; a
man destitute of feeling.
4. Any state or condition of emotion; the
exercise of the capacity for emotion; any mental state whatever; as,
a right or a wrong feeling in the heart; our angry or kindly
feelings; a feeling of pride or of humility.
A fellow feeling makes one wondrous
kind.
Garrick.
Tenderness for the feelings of
others.
Macaulay.
5. That quality of a work of art which
embodies the mental emotion of the artist, and is calculated to
affect similarly the spectator. Fairholt.
Syn. -- Sensation; emotion; passion; sentiment; agitation;
opinion. See Emotion, Passion, Sentiment.
