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Borrowed from Japanese悟り(satori, “understanding; (Buddhism) enlightenment, satori”), from 悟る(satoru, “to perceive; to comprehend, understand; to come to enlightenment”), from Middle Chinese悟(nguH, “to become aware, apprehend, realize; to awaken”) (modern Mandarin悟(wù)), used to translate Palibodhi(“supreme knowledge”) or its etymonSanskritबोधि(bodhi, “perfect knowledge or wisdom by which a person becomes a buddha or jina; enlightened or illuminated intellect of a Buddha or jina”).[1]
Sense 3 (“mutant gene of Drosophila that causes homosexual behaviour in males”) was coined by the Japanese scientist Daisuke Yamamoto in a 1991 paper,[2] based on the Japanese term.
1727, Engelbertus Kæmpfer [i.e., Engelbert Kaempfer], “Of the Temples and Clergy of this City”, in J. G. Scheuchzer [i.e., Johann Caspar Scheuchzer], transl., The History of Japan,, volume I, London: or the translator, →OCLC, book IV (Of Nagasacki,), page 308:
y his ſublime underſtanding and reputed great knovvledge in divine myſteries he obtain'd, and ſtill keeps, the name and repute of a Godo, that is, a perſon bleſs'd vvith a divine and moſt accute underſtanding, vvhom they ſuppoſe to be able to find out by his Satori, or Enthuſiaſtic Speculations, ſuch miſterious truths, as are far beyond the reach of common knovvledge.
1727, Engelbertus Kæmpfer [i.e., Engelbert Kaempfer], “.] I. The Natural History of the Japanese Tea; with an Accurate Description of that Plant, Its Culture, Growth, Preparation, and Uses.”, in J. G. Scheuchzer [i.e., Johann Caspar Scheuchzer], transl., The History of Japan,, volume II, London: or the translator, →OCLC, § 2, page 3:
He [Darma or Bodhidharma] lived only upon vegetables, and thought this to be the higheſt degree of Holineſs, to paſs days and nights in an uninterrupted Satori, that is, a contemplation of the Divine Being.
Zen teaches that we are all already enlightened, some of us simply don't choose to realize it. If we choose to embrace Satori, then we are enlightened.
Satori and Zen seem to have such an intimate relationship in Japan that when somebody says "satori," everybody immediately associates it with Zen, and vice versa. […] For Shakyamuni, satori wasn't something peculiar only to himself. His was the satori of life inclusive of himself and all things. That is something that truly goes beyond the discrimination of our minds.
What happened to the Merry Band on its trip during the summer of 1964 ranged from the cosmically sublime to the ridiculous, from peak ecstasy to full-tilt satori. To say that they were merely high would do a disservice to how stoned they really were, […]
We have isolated a new Drosophila mutant, satori (sat), the males of which do not court or copulate with female flies. […] We have screened about 2000 fly lines with single P-element insertions for altered sexual behavior, yielding a mutant named satori (sat; nirvana in Japanese), the males of which do not court or copulate with females. Instead, sat males exhibit homosexual courtship.
1996 October, Daisuke Yamamoto, Hiroki Ito, Kazuko Fujitani, “Genetic Dissection of Sexual Orientation: Behavioral, Cellular, and Molecular Approaches in Drosophila melanogaster”, in Neuroscience Research: The Official Journal of the Japan Neuroscience Society, volume 26, number 2, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, abstract, page 95:
he primary site of action of the fru gene should be in the neural cells. satori, one of the P-insertion alleles of fru which we isolated, carried the lacZ gene of E. coli as a reporter, and β-galactosidase expression was found in a subset of brain cells including those in the antennal lobe in the satori mutant.
Borrowed from Japanese覚(satori), from Middle Chinese覺(kaewk, “to become aware, awaken to, dawn on”) (modern Mandarin覺 / 觉(jué); referring to the creature’s mind-reading ability).[3]
The Satori appears in [Toriyama] Sekien's Konjyaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki as a hairy, ape-like, mountain-dwelling creature that can read people's minds[…].
2023, Masami Kinoshita, “Super Scary Yokai”, in The Japanese Yokai Handbook: A Guide to the Spookiest Ghosts, Demons, Monsters and Evil Creatures from Japanese Folklore, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, →ISBN, page 29:
Satori is a ghost that can read people's thoughts and haunts the mountains. The hairy Satori appears in an Edo-period book titled Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki. According to the book, Satori can read people's minds, but will not harm them. Even if a frightened person plans to kill him or her, Satori reads his or her mind and simply runs away before he or she can do any harm.
2023, Kenji Murakami, “Yokai Countermeasures and Weaknesses”, in Zack Davisson, transl., Strange Japanese Yokai: A Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Monsters, Demons and Spirits, North Clarendon, Vt.: Tuttle Publishing, →ISBN, page 89:
This is most likely a type of Yokai called a Satori. They have the ability to read people's minds. And like with Satori, the only way to get rid of them is with a sudden, unexpected attack. […] The ability to read minds is dangerous, but it doesn't give the ability to predict sudden actions.
Translations
yokai having the form of a mind-reading monkey-like creature
^ Daisuke Yamamoto (2016 March 30) “Nature vs. Nurture in Drosophila Courtship ”, in Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology: “Approximately 25 years ago, I discovered a clue to tackling this problem by isolating a Drosophila mutant that I named satori, males of which preferentially courted males rather than females without copulating (Yamamoto et al., 1991).”
^ Toriyama Sekien (2016) “覚: Satori (Perceiver)”, in , transl., Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, published 2017, →ISBN, page 92: “Satori is written with a character meaning ‘enlightenment,’ presumably a reference to its ability to read minds.”
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “satori, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
satori on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 
