sense

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
sense/sens/

▶noun

• 1 a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

  ■ (one's senses) one's sanity: she seems to have taken leave of her senses.

• 2 an awareness of something or feeling that something is the case.

• 3 a sane and realistic attitude to situations and problems.

  ■ a reasonable or comprehensible rationale.

• 4 a way in which an expression or situation can be interpreted; a meaning.

• 5 chiefly Mathematics & Physics the property distinguishing two opposite but otherwise identical things, e.g. motion in opposite directions.

• 6 [as modifier] Genetics relating to or denoting a coding sequence of nucleotides, complementary to an antisense sequence.

▶verb

• 1 perceive by a sense or senses.

  ■ be vaguely or indefinably aware of.

• 2 (of a machine or similar device) detect.

– phrases
make sense be intelligible, justifiable, or practicable.
make sense of find meaning or coherence in.

– origin ME: from L. sensus ‘faculty of feeling, thought, meaning’, from sentire ‘feel’.