Definition of "sensation"

Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Confining ourselves, for the moment, to sensations, we find that there are different degrees of publicity attaching to different sorts of sensations. If you feel a toothache when the other people in the room do not, you are in no way surprised; but if you hear a clap of thunder when they do not, you begin to be alarmed as to your mental condition.

1921, Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind

In the dead state all is apparently without motion. No agent within indicates design, intelligence, or foresight: there is no respiration; […] no sensation; […]

1822, John Barclay, chapter I, in An Inquiry Into the Opinions, Ancient and Modern, Concerning Life and Organization‎, Edinburgh, London: Bell & Bradfute; Waugh & Innes; G. & W. B. Whittaker, section I, page 2

“Two or three months more went by; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. […] ”

1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Tremarn Case‎

Young Derby's odd genius developed remarkably, and in his eighteenth year his collected nightmare-lyrics made a real sensation when issued under the title Azathoth and Other Horrors.

1937, H. P. Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep

A Sensation . . Half-a-glass of sherry.

1852, George Butler Earp, Gold Seeker's Manual, page 52

When men go into a 'sluicery' for a 'sensation,' a 'drain,' or a 'common sewer,' they call the glass of gin they seek, in allusion to the juniper, a 'nipper,' or, more briefly, a 'nip,' occasionally a 'bite,' and not unfrequently it turns out a 'flogger.'

1869, Meliora, volume 12, page 47