visceral

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: vis=cer=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

visceral, a. [Cf. F. viscéral, LL. visceralis.].

•  Of, pertaining to, or affecting the viscera; splanchnic.  [1913 Webster]
•  Fig.: Having deep sensibility.  Bp. Reynolds.  [1913 Webster]
•  proceeding from emotion or instinct rather than from intellect; deeply emotional; -- as, a visceral reaction.  [PJC]
•  dealing with coarse or base emotions; -- as, a visceral literary style.  [PJC]

Visceral arches (Anat.), the bars or ridges between the visceral clefts. -- Visceral cavity or Visceral tube (Anat.), the ventral cavity of a vertebrate, which contains the alimentary canal, as distinguished from the dorsal, or cerebro-spinal, canal. -- Visceral clefts (Anat.), transverse clefts on the sides just back of the mouth in the vertebrate embryo, which open into the pharyngeal portion of the alimentary canal, and correspond to the branchial clefts in adult fishes.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

visceral, adj.
1 of the viscera.
2 relating to inward feelings rather than conscious reasoning.

Idiom

visceral nerve a sympathetic nerve (see SYMPATHETIC adj. 9).

Derivative

viscerally adv.

THESAURUS

visceral

abdominal, affectional, affective, anal, appendical, cardiac, cecal, colic, colonic, coronary, demonstrative, duodenal, emotiometabolic, emotiomotor, emotional, emotiovascular, emotive, enteric, feeling, gastric, glandular, gut, ileac, instinctual, interior, internal, intestinal, intimate, intuitive, jejunal, mesogastric, of soul, overdemonstrative, pyloric, rectal, soulful, splanchnic