We know the world through our eyes, our ears, our fingers, our noses, and our mouths. Sensory verbs (or sense verbs) are the verbs we use to talk about our five senses in English.
With our eyes, we see.
With out ears, we hear.
With our fingers, we feel.
With our noses, we smell.
And with our mouths, we taste.
These are the five basic sensory verbs in English. But we use slightly different sensory verbs depending on the situation.
Using Sensory Verbs in English
Passive/Unintentional
There are three basic ways that we can use sensory verbs in English.
The first is for when we unintentionally sense something. For instance, I am sitting in my room and I hear a truck outside. I'm not trying to hear the truck. I am just sitting here, and the sound reaches my ears. Hear is the way we describe the passive sense of hearing. Here are some more examples of passive, unintentional sensory verbs:
I see a rainbow!
The dog hears someone at the door.
I can feel the floor vibrating!
Do you smell something cooking?
I think I taste cinnamon in this bread.
Active/Intentional
The second way we talk about sensory verbs is when we actively, intentionally use our senses. For example, my soup comes, and I am excited to try it. I put my nose close to the bowl and I smell the soup. Then I take my spoon and I taste my soup. I am actively trying to pay attention to the sensation. These are sometimes called dynamic sensory verbs. Here are examples of the five sensory verbs we use for intentionally using our senses:
She looked out of the window.
Shh! I am listening to a lector for my homework!
Here, taste this before it gets cold.
She smelled the milk to see if it was okay to drink.
He touched the grass, and it was wet.
Stative Sensory Verbs
The final type of sensory verb is a bit different. The first two types describe what people do. with their senses. But the third type of sensory verb talks about the things that we sense, the cause of what we are feeling. I can listen to music, and the music sounds good to me. I can touch the ice, and the ice feels cold to me. These are called stative sensory verbs, because they describe the state of the thing. Here are five more examples:
She was wearing her new dress. She looked beautiful.
What is that music? It sounds terrible.
Wow, this sauce tastes incredible!
Ew, that trash smells awful.
This blanket feels so soft!
Notice that in each of the examples above, the thing is the subject, not a person.
Adjectives and Stative Sensory Verbs
Another thing to notice about stative sensory verbs is that we use adjectives with them. Other verbs often have adverbs after them (adverbs describe verbs). But with stative verbs, we use adjectives. Adjectives describe nouns, and the stative verb is connecting the noun to the adjective that describes it.
Look again at the examples in the last section. We say It sounds terrible, not It sounds terribly. We say It tastes good, not It tastes well.
