Feeler
/ˈfiːləɹ/ noun
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Someone or something that feels. literally
"Are you more of a feeler or more of a thinker?"
- 2 one of a pair of mobile appendages on the head of e.g. insects and crustaceans; typically sensitive to touch and taste wordnet
- 3 An antenna or appendage used for feeling, especially on an insect.
- 4 slender tactile process on the jaws of a fish wordnet
- 5 Something ventured to test another's feelings, opinion, or position. figuratively
"I sent out some feelers but they didn't seem interested."
Show 3 more definitions
- 6 sensitivity similar to that of a receptor organ wordnet
- 7 a presumptive person; someone who bases on gut feeling, such as assuming or imagining that something said or done, whether positive or negative, was for a person despite having no concrete confirmation but gut feeling, or someone who assumes one's affection is reciprocated, or indulges in one's own wishful thinking or flatters oneself Philippines
- 8 a tentative suggestion designed to elicit the reactions of others wordnet
Example
More examples"Are you more of a feeler or more of a thinker?"
Etymology
From Middle English feler, feeler, felar, equivalent to feel + -er. Animal organ definition from 1660s. Transferred sense of "proposal put forth to observe the reaction it gets" is from 1830.