subjectivity

American  

[suhb-jek-tiv-i-tee] / ˌsʌb dʒɛkˈtɪv ɪ ti /

noun

• subjectivities
  plural

1. the state or quality of being subjective; subjectiveness.

2. a subjective thought or idea.

3. intentness on internal thoughts.

4. internal reality.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonsubjectivity
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• subjectivities
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of subjectivity

First recorded in 1805–15; subjective + -ity; probably modeled on German Subjectivität

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Explanation

Subjectivity refers to how someone’s judgment is shaped by personal opinions and feelings instead of outside influences. Subjectivity is partially responsible for why one person loves an abstract painting while another person hates it. Since a subject is a person, subjectivity refers to how a person's own uniqueness influences their perceptions. For example, if you have six sisters, that might influence how you view women or families — it's part of your subjectivity. Subjectivity is a form of bias and also individuality. Subjectivity is the opposite of objectivity, which is based purely on the facts and isn't personal. We expect judges to put aside their subjectivity and make decisions based on objectivity.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

subjectivity subjectivities

Selznick deplored Hitchcock’s “goddamn jigsaw cutting,” the dreamlike, jagged images that create his signature subjectivity, but Webb didn’t mind it at all.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

The court’s language frames the issue as biology vs. identity, objectivity vs. subjectivity, reality vs. fiction.

From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026

"Bringing these two fields together can open up for a more holistic psychology, in which both neurological mechanisms and subjective experience are included. In this way, we can understand subjectivity in a more scientific manner."

From Science Daily ● Jul. 1, 2026

She voiced frustration over the subjectivity that she says now shapes the process.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026

It is an exercise, simultaneously, in a new objectivity and a new subjectivity.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Furthermore, the album engages with Berlant's concept of gendered subjectivities, which emphasizes the fluid and performative nature of identity.

From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2024

A Shakespeare play is not a political statement, it’s a mosh pit of subjectivities, and here the audience was expected to sit back and rationally parse a theatrical Rorschach blot.

From New York Times ● Mar. 11, 2020

“Awareness that one’s self possesses multiple possible subjectivities or identities resists categorization,” he writes.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 18, 2018

And yet there is a compelling argument to be made, more generally, that journalism’s putative standards of objectivity are sometimes wielded to check not subjectivity, per se, but unwanted subjectivities.

From Slate ● Apr. 30, 2015

Even the knowledge that we have of the two great conditions under which terrestrial subjectivities occur—circumscription and complexity—is only empirical.

From Mind and Motion and Monism by George John Romanes

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Related Words

• individuality

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