visceral
adjective
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The Tie Between Visceral and Biology
Apologies in advance for the offal puns, but we have a gut feeling it’s going to be hard to resist serving them up for this particular word. After all, the English language is home to a bellyful of words that refer literally to body parts and figuratively to emotions associated with them. If something has ever tickled your funny bone or touched your heart, we trust you’ve got our back on this. The adjective visceral is another prime example. Something described as visceral has to do with the viscera—that is, the internal organs of the body (especially the heart, liver, or intestines). Yet even in the early years of its use, visceral often described emotional feeling, as the physical viscera were considered the seats of human passion, sentiment, et al. Though we no longer ascribe anger to, say, the spleen, we still use visceral to describe things that are felt deeply, as if in our physical bodies. In medical contexts the word still describes things related to our actual viscera.
Examples of visceral in a Sentence
Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, 6 Nov. 2006
When you measure your waist circumference, you're indirectly measuring your visceral fat.
—David Schardt, Nutrition Action, July/August 2006
But there are strong taboos I haven't anticipated. The most striking is the visceral dislike of rawness. In China, the consumption of raw foods was historically viewed as a barbarian habit, and most everything is still eaten cooked.
—Fuchsia Dunlop, Gourmet, August 2005
One of the wonders of cooking is that the tiniest adjustment to what you are making, the addition of a single ingredient or the execution of a technique, can entirely change a dish and the visceral response you get from eating it.
—Amanda Hesser, New York Times, 17 July 2002
Her visceral reaction was to curse at the other driver.
Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 27 Nov. 2024
Instead, Virgin advocates for tools like DEXA scans, which provide a comprehensive look at body composition, including muscle mass, visceral fat and bone density.
—Sandra Rose Salathe, Flow Space, 21 Nov. 2024
Our writer, Peter Cameron, came up with this idea of a car accident that felt so visceral and exciting and cinematic.
—Katie Campione, Deadline, 18 Oct. 2024
The 1971 film provided a template for a visceral, violent city.
—Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 20 Sep. 2024
See all Example Sentences for visceral 
Dictionary Entries Near visceral
Cite this Entry
“Visceral.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/visceral. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.
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visceral
adjective
Medical Definition
visceral
adjective
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