sensibility

[sen-suh-bil-i-tee]

noun

plural

sensibilities 

1. capacity for sensation or feeling; responsiveness or susceptibility to sensory stimuli.

2. mental susceptibility or responsiveness; quickness and acuteness of apprehension or feeling.

   Synonyms: awareness, alertness

3. keen consciousness or appreciation.

4. sensibilities, emotional capacities.

5. Sometimes sensibilities. liability to feel hurt or offended; sensitive feelings.

6. Often sensibilities. capacity for intellectual and aesthetic distinctions, feelings, tastes, etc..

   a man of refined sensibilities.

7. the property, as in plants or instruments, of being readily affected by external influences.

sensibility

/ ˌsɛnsɪˈbɪlɪtɪ /

noun

1. the ability to perceive or feel

2. (often plural) the capacity for responding to emotion, impression, etc

3. (often plural) the capacity for responding to aesthetic stimuli

4. mental responsiveness; discernment; awareness

5. (usually plural) emotional or moral feelings

   cruelty offends most people's sensibilities

6. the condition of a plant of being susceptible to external influences, esp attack by parasites

Other Word Forms

• hypersensibility noun
• nonsensibility noun
• unsensibility noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of sensibility¹

First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English sensibilite, from Middle French, from Late Latin sēnsibilitās. See sensible, -ity

Synonym Study

Sensibility, susceptibility, sensitiveness, sensitivity refer to capacity to respond to or be affected by something. Sensibility is, particularly, capacity to respond to aesthetic and emotional stimuli: the sensibility of the artist. Susceptibility is the state or quality of being impressionable and responsive, especially to emotional stimuli; in the plural it has much the same meaning as sensibility : a person of keen susceptibilities. Sensitiveness is the state or quality of being sensitive, of having a capacity of sensation and of responding to external stimuli: sensitiveness to light. Sensitivity is a special capability of being sensitive to physiological, chemical action or a tendency to be easily affected by the adverse reactions of others: the sensitivity of a nerve; sensitivity to criticism.

Example Sentences

Mr. Gould convincingly argues that the British Invasion encoded “a distinct strain of art-school sensibility into the archetype of a ‘rock group.’”

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It was a shared sensibility formed by what we’d already lived through, the theater of our childhood: Thatcher, Reagan, the MX missile.

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During the following decades, exhibitions often revealed a tug-of-war between opposing sensibilities—fissures perhaps unavoidable in a contentious democracy’s national museums—but in this century, a particular ideological bent has become dominant.

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Executive perks in general have gotten less lavish as Americans developed a more populist sensibility after the financial crisis of the aughts.

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When Anni Albers published her theoretical magnum opus “On Weaving” in 1965, she was already lamenting the loss of our tactile sensibilities, which have undeniably worsened in the digital era.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• affection 
• emotion 
• feeling 
• insight 
• sense 
• sensitivity 
• sentiment 
• taste