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OneKitly

sensor

nounattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈsɛn.sə//
  • United States//ˈsɛn.sɚ//

A device or organ that detects certain external stimuli and responds in a distinctive manner.

noun

  1. 1

    A device or organ that detects certain external stimuli and responds in a distinctive manner.

    The smoke sensor triggered the alarm.

    Modern phones contain a light sensor that adjusts brightness.

    A motion sensor detected movement in the empty room.

Etymology

Originated 1925–30, formed as a Latin loanword from sentiō (“to feel”) + -tor (“-er”). By surface analysis, sense + -or.

Forms

plural
sensors
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).