Meaning of sensawunda | Babel Free

Definitions

Wonder or excitement invoked by the grandeur and vision of science fiction.

dated, slang, uncountable

Examples

“How does a non-science fiction writer write science fiction? We had a taste with John Hersey's WHITE LOTUS and MY PETITION FOR MORE SPACE and discovered that future visions could be presented with such reality and simplicity that our sensawunda could be thrown away and we could discover, instead, deep and beautiful characters.”

“[…] in order to be able to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Sultan of Alpha Centauri engineers a breath-taking re-siting of the entire solar system — sensawunda indeed!”

“In this one Brin thinks big and the sensawunda gets turned up to eleven. For instance instead of puny ordinary Dyson spheres, Brin gives us fractal Dyson spheres to maximise the surface area for their trillions of inhabitants.”

CEFR level