susceptibility
Americannoun
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state or character of being susceptible.
susceptibility to disease.
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capacity for receiving mental or moral impressions; tendency to be emotionally affected.
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susceptibilities, capacities for emotion; feelings.
His susceptibilities are easily wounded.
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Electricity.
noun
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the quality or condition of being susceptible
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the ability or tendency to be impressed by emotional feelings; sensitivity
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(plural) emotional sensibilities; feelings
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physics
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Also called: electric susceptibility. Χ. (of a dielectric) the amount by which the relative permittivity differs from unity
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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
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.
Vocabulary lists containing susceptibility
This Week in Words: April 7- 13, 2018
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The Awakening
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"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Vocabulary from the political argument
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"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
The neutron scattering and AC magnetic susceptibility work at Rice was supported by the U.S.
From Science Daily • Apr. 22, 2026
A lack of trust in government and health systems in the UK "underlaid susceptibility to false information", it added, and said action was needed to rebuild public trust in vaccines more generally.
From BBC • Apr. 16, 2026
Sad to say, there could hardly be a better time to bring back Mr. Letts’s stealthy, slow-burning 1996 play about the human susceptibility to paranoid delusions.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 9, 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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
