Nociception
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The physiological process underlying the sensation of pain. countable, uncountable
"The sensation was curious. The bullet passed through her thigh, cleanly, severing the dust-bones and making the second self stumble for a moment before knitting the injury back together. It didn't hurt — she'd have needed an entire quarry's worth of sand for nociception — but she still felt the hole appear, still felt the tiny slug passing through, still felt the quivering impact and the explosive exit. She felt the next three as well, and then she was standing over a cowering woman in a black leather jacket and beanie with a look of complete and total bafflement on her face."
Example
More examples"The sensation was curious. The bullet passed through her thigh, cleanly, severing the dust-bones and making the second self stumble for a moment before knitting the injury back together. It didn't hurt — she'd have needed an entire quarry's worth of sand for nociception — but she still felt the hole appear, still felt the tiny slug passing through, still felt the quivering impact and the explosive exit. She felt the next three as well, and then she was standing over a cowering woman in a black leather jacket and beanie with a look of complete and total bafflement on her face."
Etymology
From Latin nocēre (“to hurt”) + English (re)ception. By surface analysis, noci- + -ception.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.