second sight
noun1
An additional sense beyond the five normal ones; the ability to see things that are not detectable by normal sight; clairvoyance; extrasensory perception.
- I think she must have the second sight, because she always knows where I've been.
- He was seized on the sudden with a fit of second-sight.1716 April 2 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 27. Thursday, March 23. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:
4 more examples
- Nor less avail'd his optic sleight, / And Scottish gift of second-sight1782, John Trumbull, McFingal:
- These fairy-lands are only seen by very pious people or by those who are gifted with second sight, when in danger of their lives at sea, and they appear where at other times no land is to be found.1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 46:
- I have noticed that such presentiments occur often in men of my peculiar temperament, and that they are not uncommonly fulfilled. There is a theory that it arises from a species of second-sight, a subtle spiritual communication with the future.1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, “That Little Square Box”, in The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales:
- I had long had a secret belief that she was gifted, to some degree at any rate, with Second Sight, which quality, or whatever it is, skilled in the powers if not the lore of superstition, manages to keep at stretch not only the mind of its immediate pathic, but of others relevant to it.1909, Bram Stoker, The Lady of the Shroud:
2
Synonym of senopia.