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For the senses, we have:

  • flavor for taste
  • aroma/odor/scent for smell
  • sound for hearing
  • ____? for touch/feel
  • ____? for sight/see

So one tastes a flavor, smells an aroma, hears a sound, feels a(n) _____, and sees a(n) _____. For the former, part of me wants to say texture, but I feel that is too specific; for the latter, I want to use visual or sight, but but does that make sense, seeing a visual or a sight?

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I can’t keep up with the edits. You keep adding my answers. :( – tchrist Feb 24 at 4:11
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@tchrist, all done now :) Sorry about that, I meant to say "touch" originally but I said "hearing" for some reason, I don't know what's wrong with my brain at this late hour haha! – Albert Renshaw Feb 24 at 4:12

4 Answers

The sense verbs are an interesting paradigm. English has three types of sense verb (with a lot of overlap), and a number of derived nouns. Two of the verb classes differ in whether they're volitional, and the other one is an experiential sense with special "Flip" syntax.

One type of verb is the Non-Volitional: hear, see, smell, taste, touch/feel
Another is the Volitional: listen, look, smell, taste, touch/feel

Hearing: You listen to something on purpose, but you can hear it by accident.
Vision: You look at something on purpose, but you can see it by accident.
Verbs for the other three senses don't vary; you can smell, taste, or touch/feel on purpose or not.

The third type is the Flip verbs: sound, look, smell, taste, feel.
Again the three chemical/kinesthetic senses don't change, though only feel works as a Flip verb:

That looks tasty. That sounds flat. That smells sour. That tastes delicious. That feels weird.

The subject of a Flip verb is not the experiencer, but rather whatever is causing the sensation being experienced. The experiencer is normally not mentioned, but if it is, it occurs in a preposition phrase (most likely to me).

Interestingly, only hearing — the sense used by language — gets to have 3 distinct sense verbs: hear, listen, and sound.

As far as nouns go, one can speak of a look and a sight (respectively from look and see), as well as a glimpse, a vision, an appearance, a sighting, an image — and no doubt many more — for vision alone. This is what a thesaurus is for.

Touch is underrepresented in nouns; adjectives are more likely. But one does speak of something having a feel, occasionally a feeling — a word which can be generalized to cover any metaphoric, psychological, or spiritual sensation, whether experienced or not, as in

I had a feeling he was going to betray us.

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This answer is great! I +1, but I haven't accepted it yet, in the case that somebody else knows an actual word that can go in the blank, (I understand there might not be a word, in which case after a while I will just accept the best answer (currently yours)) – Albert Renshaw Feb 24 at 16:09
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+1 for introducing me to the concept of volitional verbs. I was looking for a word to pin on such verbs. – Joe Z. Feb 24 at 16:26

That word is sound. A flavor is what you taste, and aroma what you smell, and a sound is what you hear.


EDIT: Ok, after your edit, it now calls for something’s feel. Or again, its touch.

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I'm sorry I asked the wrong question haha :( I knew this, I feel dumb, I'm editing it now... sorry haha – Albert Renshaw Feb 24 at 4:08

Besides already-mentioned feel (“A quality of an object experienced by touch”), feeling (“Sensation, particularly through the skin”), and texture (“The feel or shape of a surface or substance; the smoothness, roughness, softness, etc. of something”) (of which the latter is less applicable), consider the following.
palpability, “The quality of being palpable”, that is, of being “capable of being touched, felt or handled; touchable, tangible”
tactility, “The ability to feel pressure or pain through touch”

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Texture was my first thought as well. – Thomas Feb 24 at 11:00

I think John's answer is pretty complete. In short, I'd say these are the two words you're looking for:

  • see: look
  • touch/feel: feel

The phrase "Look and feel" immediately comes to mind.

I may be biased by working in the software industry - I'm not sure if this phrase is actually more widespread, but I imagine it evolved the other way around with the industry picking it up because of its usage elsewhere.

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