synesthesia

/sɪnɪsˈθiʒə/

/sɪnɛsˈθiʒə/

Other forms: synesthesias

Synesthesia is a condition that happens when a sense, such as sight, triggers another sense, like smell, at the same time. For someone with synesthesia, each letter of the alphabet might have a different odor. Cool!

Synesthesia happens when someone’s senses are blended. The word synesthesia comes from the Greek syn for “together” and the root aisthe for “to feel.” People with synesthesia often don’t realize at first that they have it — they think everyone sees the number 8 as red, for example! The writer Vladimir Nabokov writes about having synesthesia in his memoir Speak, Memory. Synesthesia is another way of perceiving the world, but it’s not a disease.

Definitions of synesthesia

1. noun

   a sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated
   synonyms: synaesthesia

   types:

   chromaesthesia, chromesthesia

   a form of synesthesia in which nonvisual stimulation results in the experience of color sensations

   colored audition, colored hearing

   a form of chromesthesia in which experiences of color accompany auditory stimuli

   type of:

   aesthesis, esthesis, sensation, sense datum, sense experience, sense impression

   an unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation
2. noun

   a figure of speech in which an author appeals to more than one of the five senses
   type of:

   figure, figure of speech, image, trope

   language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense