sensus

Sensus, sensus, m., fourth declension, built on the supine stem of sentio, "feel, perceive". Genitive sensus, dative sensui, ablative sensu; plural sensus, sensuum, sensibus. The fourth declension trap applies: sensus alone can be nominative singular, genitive singular or nominative or accusative plural.

The range runs from physical sensation, the five senses, through feeling and opinion, to the meaning of a word or a passage. That last is the sense in which medieval commentators separate the sensus litteralis from the sensus spiritualis, and it is the one that dominates scholastic prose. English sense, sensible, sentiment and consensus all belong to the family, and Spanish sentido and French sens keep both the "meaning" and the "direction" halves alive.