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Sentience vs Essence - What's the difference?

sentience | essence |

As nouns the difference between sentience and essence

is that sentience is the state or quality of being sentient; possession of consciousness or sensory awareness while essence is (senseid)the inherent nature of a thing or idea.

sentience

English

Noun

(-)
  • The state or quality of being sentient; possession of consciousness or sensory awareness.
  • * 1903 , , The Jewel of Seven Stars , ch. 5:
  • [T]he shadows . . . presently began to seem, as on last night, to have a sentience of their own.
  • * 2007 Dec. 28, Alexandra Silver, " Did This Tiger Hold a Grudge?," Time :
  • The science of animal sentience is far from a firm one; there's no way of knowing exactly what any animal is feeling.

    essence

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (senseid)The inherent nature of a thing or idea.
  • * Landor
  • The laws are at present, both in form and essence , the greatest curse that society labours under.
  • * Addison
  • Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence of this virtue [charity].
  • * Courthorpe
  • The essence of Addison's humour is irony.
  • (philosophy) The true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory.
  • Constituent substance.
  • * Milton
  • Uncompounded is their essence pure.
  • A being; especially, a purely spiritual being.
  • * Milton
  • As far as gods and heavenly essences / Can perish.
  • * Washington Irving
  • He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences , until he had an ideal world of his own around him.
  • A significant feature of something.
  • The concentrated form of a plant or drug obtained through a distillation process.
  • * essence of Jojoba
  • Fragrance, a perfume.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Nor let the essences exhale.

    Derived terms

    * in essence * of the essence; time is of the essence

    Anagrams

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