1. physiology sensation felt elsewhere in body: the feeling of sensation in one part of the body when another part is stimulated
2. psychology stimulation of one sense alongside another: the evocation of one kind of sense impression when another sense is stimulated, e.g. the sensation of color when a sound is heard
3. literature rhetorical device: in literature, the description of one kind of sense perception using words that describe another kind of sense perception, as in the phrase "shining metallic words"
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[Late 19th century. < modern Latin< syn- (< Greek sun "together") + stem of Greek aisthēsis "sensation," after anesthesia]