susceptibility

American  

[suh-sep-tuh-bil-i-tee] / səˌsɛp təˈbɪl ɪ ti /

noun

• susceptibilities
  plural

1. state or character of being susceptible.

   susceptibility to disease.

2. capacity for receiving mental or moral impressions; tendency to be emotionally affected.

3. susceptibilities, capacities for emotion; feelings.

   His susceptibilities are easily wounded.

4. Electricity.

   1. electric susceptibility.

   2. magnetic susceptibility.

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susceptibility British  

/ səˌsɛptəˈbɪlɪtɪ /

noun

1. the quality or condition of being susceptible

2. the ability or tendency to be impressed by emotional feelings; sensitivity

3. (plural) emotional sensibilities; feelings

4. physics

   1. Also called: electric susceptibility.   Χ.  (of a dielectric) the amount by which the relative permittivity differs from unity

   2.  Κ.  Also called: magnetic susceptibility.  (of a magnetic medium) the amount by which the relative permeability differs from unity

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Synonym Usage

See sensibility.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonsusceptibility
  noun
• oversusceptibility
  noun
• presusceptibility
  noun
• unsusceptibility
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• susceptibilities
  plural

Etymology

Origin of susceptibility

First recorded in 1635–45; from Medieval Latin susceptibilitās, equivalent to susceptibilis(is) susceptible + -itās- -ity

Explanation

Susceptibility is a tendency to be affected by something. Some people have a greater susceptibility to colds than others. A susceptibility is a type of weakness, but a particular kind. If your knee keeps getting injured, you may have a susceptibility to knee problems. If alcoholism runs in your family, you probably have a susceptibility to being an alcoholic yourself. Some people have a susceptibility to spending a lot of money or eating too much. When you have a susceptibility, there's something you can't resist or can't fight off.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

susceptibility susceptibilities

"We can preemptively screen different species and different tissues within them for susceptibility," said Kuchipudi.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026

"These age-related changes, known as immunosenescence, lead to a decline in immune resilience and an increased susceptibility to age-related chronic inflammatory diseases," Kirkwood explains.

From Science Daily ● May 19, 2026

Pandemics happen with regularity due to little things like the susceptibility of the human body to illness and international trade and travel.

From Salon ● May 11, 2026

Thermo Fisher on Monday said the microbiology business, which provides antimicrobial susceptibility testing and culture media solutions for clinical, pharmaceutical and food-safety testing, generated $645 million in revenue last year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026

In 2004 two U.S. anthropologists and a Venezuelan medical researcher proposed that Native American susceptibility to infectious disease might have a second cause: helper-T cells, which like HLAs help the immune system recognize foreign objects.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

He is one of the 90% of people with so-called idiopathic disease: Their Parkinson’s has no clear genetic cause but almost certainly results from some combination of ill-defined genetic susceptibilities and environmental triggers.

From Science Magazine ● May 4, 2023

Social media, he says, exacerbate some dangerous susceptibilities — to demagoguery and moral vanity — that are neither new nor entirely expungable.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2021

Jeff Bardin, the chief intelligence officer at cybersecurity firm Treadstone 71, told Fox News that almost immediately after Soleimani's death, Iranian hackers began infiltrating U.S. city websites, searching for susceptibilities.

From Fox News ● Jan. 3, 2020

Without the plant host susceptibilities, the pathogen would starve before the plant got sick.

From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2018

We refused this offer nominally in view of Belgian susceptibilities.

From My Mission to London 1912-1914 by Karl Max, Fürst von Lichnowsky