Feel"ing, a.
1.
Possessing great sensibility; easily affected or moved; as, a feeling heart.
2.
Expressive of great sensibility; attended by, or evincing, sensibility; as, he made a feeling representation of his wrongs.
© Webster 1913.
Feel"ing, n.
1.
The sense by which the mind, through certain nerves of the body, perceives external objects, or certain states of the body itself; that one of the five senses which resides in the general nerves of sensation distributed over the body, especially in its surface; the sense of touch; nervous sensibility to external objects.
Why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined, . . .
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused?
Milton.
2.
An act or state of perception by the sense above described; an act of apprehending any object whatever; an act or state of apprehending the state of the soul itself; consciousness.
The apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Shak.
3.
The capacity of the soul for emotional states; a high degree of susceptibility to emotions or states of the sensibility not dependent on the body; as, a man of feeling; a man destitute of feeling.
4.
Any state or condition of emotion; the exercise of the capacity for emotion; any mental state whatever; as, a right or a wrong feeling in the heart; our angry or kindly feelings; a feeling of pride or of humility.
A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind.
Garrick.
Tenderness for the feelings of others.
Macaulay.
5.
That quality of a work of art which embodies the mental emotion of the artist, and is calculated to affect similarly the spectator.
Fairholt.
Syn. -- Sensation; emotion; passion; sentiment; agitation; opinion. See Emotion, Passion, Sentiment.
© Webster 1913.