Sensors are used today almost everywhere. Radar guns bounce microwaves off moving cars. A burglar alarm may use a photosensor to detect when a beam of light has been broken, or may use ultrasonic sound waves that bounce off moving objects. Still other sensors may detect pressure (barometers) or chemicals (Breathalyzers and smoke detectors). Stud finders, used by carpenters to locate wooden studs under a wall, may employ magnets or radar. Wired gloves, which relay information about the position of the fingers, are used in virtual-reality environments. A cheap car alarm may be nothing but a shock sensor, in which a strong vibration will cause two metal surfaces to come together.

To cause (someone or something) to react less to or be less affected by something.

Physical desensitizing is something that biologists have long been aware of. Basic training in the armed forces tries to desensitize new recruits to pain. We can desensitize ourselves to the summer heat by turning off the air conditioning, or become desensitized to the cold by walking barefoot in the snow. But *desensitize* is more often used when talking about negative emotions. Parents worry that their children will be desensitized to violence by playing video games. Soldiers may become desensitized to death on the battlefield. Desensitizing may be natural and desirable under some circumstances, but maybe not so good in others.

Not acting or occurring through any of the known senses.

Since *extra* means “outside, beyond”, *extrasensory* means basically “beyond the senses.” Extrasensory perception, or ESP, usually includes communication between minds involving no obvious contact (*telepathy*), gaining information about something without using the normal senses (*clairvoyance*), or predicting the future (*precognition*). According to polls, about 40% of Americans believe in ESP, and many of them have had personal experiences that seem to prove its existence. When someone jumps into your mind months or years after you had last thought of him or her, and the next day you learn that the person has just died, it can be hard to convince yourself it was just coincidence. Still, scientific attempts to prove the existence of ESP have never been terribly successful.

(1) Highly pleasing to the senses. (2) Relating to the senses.

*Sensuous* and *sensual* are close in meaning but not identical, and *sensuous* was actually coined by the poet John Milton so that he wouldn't have to use *sensual*. *Sensuous* usually implies pleasing of the senses by art or similar means; great music, for example, can be a source of sensuous delight. *Sensual,* on the other hand, usually describes gratification of the senses or physical appetites as an end in itself; thus we often think (perhaps unfairly) of wealthy Romans leading lives devoted to sensual pleasure. You can see why the Puritan Milton might have wanted another word.

Cleverly deceptive reasoning or argument.

The Sophists were a group of Greek teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, famous during the 5th century B.C., who moved from town to town offering their teaching for a fee. The Sophists originally represented a respectable school of philosophy, but some critics claimed that they tried to persuade by means of clever but misleading arguments. The philosopher Plato wrote negatively about them, and the comic dramatist Aristophanes made fun of them, showing them making ridiculously fine distinctions about word meanings. We get our modern meanings of *sophist, sophistry*, and the adjective *sophistical* mostly from the opinions of these two men.

(1) Having a thorough knowledge of the ways of society. (2) Highly complex or developed.

A sophisticated argument is thorough and well-worked-out. A satellite is a sophisticated piece of technology, complex and designed to accomplish difficult tasks. A sophisticated person, such as Humphrey Bogart in *Casablanca,* knows how to get around in the world. But *sophistication* isn't always admired. As you might guess, the word is closely related to *sophistry* (see above), and its original meanings weren't very positive, and still today many of us aren't sure we really like *sophisticates*.

Overly impressed with one's own knowledge, but in fact undereducated and immature.

*Sophomoric* seems to include the roots *soph-,* “wise,” and *moros,* “fool” (seen in words such as *moron*), so the contrast between wisdom and ignorance is built right into the word. Cambridge University introduced the term *sophomore* for its second-year students in the 17th century (though it's no longer used in Britain), maybe to suggest that a sophomore has delusions of wisdom since he's no longer an ignorant freshman. In America today, *sophomore* is ambiguous since it can refer to either high school or college. But *sophomoric* should properly describe something—wit, behavior, arguments, etc.—that is at least trying to be *sophisticated*.

The word *theosophy*, combining roots meaning “God” and “wisdom,” appeared back in the 17th century, but the well-known religious movement by that name, under the leadership of the Russian Helena Blavatsky, appeared only around 1875. Blavatsky's theosophy combined elements of Plato's philosophy with Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu thought (including reincarnation), in a way that she claimed had been divinely revealed to her. The *Theosophical* Society, founded in 1875 to promote her beliefs, still exists, as does the *Anthroposophical* Society, founded by her follower Rudolf Steiner.