sensualist

[ sen-shoo-uh-list ]

noun

1. a person given to the indulgence of the senses or appetites.
2. a person who holds the doctrine of sensationalism.

Other Words From

• sensu·al·istic adjective
• nonsen·su·al·istic adjective
• unsen·su·al·istic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of sensualist¹

First recorded in 1655–65; sensual + -ist

Example Sentences

If we look to the previous two decades of movies, we find charming, fastidious sensualists — the stars of warm comedies.

From Seattle Times

Rajamouli is a cinematic sensualist, something not often seen or appreciated in the action genre.

From Salon

When a poem of hers, "Spring," was rejected — the editor found its style too "sensualist," à la Romantic poetry — she decided to send it to Seventeen magazine instead.

From Salon

Campion, one of cinema’s great sensualists, captures Phil and his men with water glimmering in the sun off their nude bodies, muscles tensed, not a woman in sight.

From Los Angeles Times

Yet the concentration and physiological specificity with which he embodied characters, from power-hungry medieval monarchs to a 20th-century sensualist painter, made you tense up in anatomical empathy.

From New York Times