SENSORY RECEPTOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sensory receptor mean? 

• SENSORY RECEPTOR (noun)
  The noun SENSORY RECEPTOR has 1 sense:

1. an organ having nerve endings (in the skin or viscera or eye or ear or nose or mouth) that respond to stimulation

  Familiarity information: SENSORY RECEPTOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SENSORY RECEPTOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An organ having nerve endings (in the skin or viscera or eye or ear or nose or mouth) that respond to stimulation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

receptor; sense organ; sensory receptor

Hypernyms ("sensory receptor" is a kind of...):

organ (a fully differentiated structural and functional unit in an animal that is specialized for some particular function)

Meronyms (parts of "sensory receptor"):

papilla (a small nipple-shaped protuberance concerned with taste, touch, or smell)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sensory receptor"):

lateral line; lateral line organ (sense organs of fish and amphibians; believed to detect pressure changes in the water)

enteroceptor; interoceptor (any receptor that responds to stimuli inside the body)

exteroceptor (any receptor that responds to stimuli outside the body)

pineal eye; third eye (a sensory structure capable of light reception located on the dorsal side of the diencephalon in various reptiles)

baroreceptor (a sensory receptor that responds to pressure)

chemoreceptor (a sensory receptor that responds to chemical stimuli)

thermoreceptor (a sensory receptor that responds to heat and cold)

eye; oculus; optic (the organ of sight)

ear (the sense organ for hearing and equilibrium)

organ of hearing (the part of the ear that is responsible for sensations of sound)

inner ear; internal ear; labyrinth (a complex system of interconnecting cavities; concerned with hearing and equilibrium)

semicircular canal (one of three tube loops filled with fluid and in planes nearly at right angles with one another; concerned with equilibrium)

stretch receptor (a receptor in a muscle that responds to stretching of the muscle tissue)

Holonyms ("sensory receptor" is a part of...):

sensory system (the body's system of sense organs)

 Context examples 

A sensory receptor of the ear located in the membranous ampulla of the semicircular duct.

(Ampullary Crest, NCI Thesaurus)