Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word sentience. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word sentience, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say sentience in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word sentience you have here. The definition of the word sentience will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofsentience, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
From sentient, from Latin sentiēns, present participle of sentiō(“feel, sense”). Compare with sentence, its equivalent formation from Classic Latin sententia (for *sentientia).
1903, Bram Stoker, chapter 5, in The Jewel of Seven Stars:
For a while I sat quiet, my heart beating. The place was grimly dark. The only light was a faint one from the top of the lamp which threw a white circle on the high ceiling, except the emerald sheen of the shade as the light took its under edges. Even the light only seemed to emphasize the blackness of the shadows. These presently began to seem, as on last night, to have a sentience of their own.
2007 December 28, Alexandra Silver, “Did This Tiger Hold a Grudge?”, in Time, archived from the original on 20 April 2010:
The science of animal sentience is far from a firm one; there's no way of knowing exactly what any animal is feeling.