sensibility

plural sensibilities

1. countablein pluraloftenuncountableEmotions or feelings arising from or relating to aesthetic or moral standards, especially those which are sensitive and thus likely to be hurt or offended.First known use 18th c.

   I apologize if I offended your sensibilities, but that’s the truth of the matter.

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   There is no way more sure of rousing the sensibilities of a commercial people, than by touching their pockets.

   1855, William H[ickling] Prescott, “View of the Netherlands”, in History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume I, Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC, book II, page 381

   However, given current sensibilities about individual privacy and data protection, the recording of oral data is becoming increasingly onerous for researchers […]

   2019 May 5 (online publication date), Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, volume 41, number 7, London: Routledge, published 2020, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 567–580

   Many earnest consumers on the Right feel so legitimately embattled by the nonstop streaming feed of hate speech and psyoppery directed at them that they think they have no choice but to reconfigure their artistic sensibilities accordingly.

   2024 June 18, Spencer Klavan, “A Matter of Taste”, in The American Mind, Upland, Calif.: Claremont Institute, archived from the original on 02 Jul 2025

   Synonyms: susceptibilities

2. uncountableThe ability to feel, perceive, or sense; responsiveness to sensory stimuli; sensitivity; also, the degree to which someone or something (especially a sensory organ or tissue) is able to respond to sensory stimuli.First known use 15th c.

   Perſons in fevers, and I believe, in moſt maniacal caſes, experience great torment from their preternatural acuteneſs. An increaſed, no leſs than an impaired ſenſibility, induces a ſtate of diſeaſe and ſuffering.

   1802, William Paley, “The Goodness of the Deity”, in Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature, London: […] [F]or R[obert] Faulder, […], by Wilks and Taylor, […], →OCLC, page 522

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   [B]y the ſharpnes therof [i.e., of “fumosity” caused by undigested meat], it prycketh and annoyeth the ſynewes, whiche make ſenſibilitie, the rootes of whome, ar in the brayn, and from thenſe paſſeth through all the body.

   153[9], Thomas Elyot, “Of Replecion”, in The Castel of Helth […], London: […] Thomæ Bertheleti […], →OCLC, book III, folio 54, recto

   Antonyms: insensibility, nonsensibility, unsensibility

3. uncountableThe quality of being easily affected by external forces or stimuli; also, of a measuring instrument: the quality of being able to detect small changes in the environment.

   The high sensibility of the divided ring electrometer renders this test really very easy, as not more than from ten to twenty cells are required; […]

   1860 January 4, W[illia]m Thomson [William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin?], “On Instruments and Methods for Observing Atmospheric Electricity”, in Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, volume IV, number 4, London; Glasgow: […] [F]or the [Royal Philosophical] Society [of Glasgow] by Richard Griffin & Company, →OCLC, page 276

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   About an Attempt to examine the Motions and Senſibility of the Carteſian Materia ſubtilis, or the Æther, with a pair of Bellovvs (made of a Bladder) in the exhausted Receiver [chapter name].

   1669, Robert Boyle, “Experiment XXXVIII”, in A Continuation of New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, and Their Effects. The I. Part. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Henry Hall, printer to the University, for Richard Davis, →OCLC, page 127

4. uncountableKeen sensitivity to matters of creative expression or feeling; artistic or emotional awareness.First known use 17th c.

   [M]uch learning deadens or perverts poetic sensibility.

   1919 September–December, T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, London: Methuen & Co. […], published 1920, →OCLC, page 47

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   Our Lord [Jesus] is ſaied to haue indurated Pharaoes hart, not that he brought the hardnes it ſelfe, but for that his deſertes ſo requiring, he did not mollifie it, vvith ſenſibilitie of fear infuſed from aboue.

   1609, The Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Laurence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Exodus 7, annotations, page 174

   Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. […] It is such an exquisite sensibility, as warns her to shun the first appearance of every thing which is hurtful.

   1711 December 4 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “FRIDAY, November 24, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 231; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 159

   But, though a degree of ſenſibility is requiſite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not neceſſarily ariſe from a quick ſenſibility of pleaſure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater complexional ſenſibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than the beſt judge by the moſt perfect; […]

   1757 (date written), [Edmund Burke], “Introduction. On Taste.”, in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 2nd edition, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, […], published 1759, →OCLC, part, page 34

   I could not excuse a man's having more music than love—more ear than eye—a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.

   1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter VI, in Emma: […], volume II, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 108

   A poet who recites his own verses from ten to five with the tears rolling down his face should decidedly be rebuked for his lack of sensibility—his lack of sensibility to those grand rhythms of the social harmony, crudely called manners.

   1906 August 30, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “Dickens and America”, in Charles Dickens: A Critical Study, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Dodd Mead & Company, published September 1906, →OCLC, page 128

   Antonyms: insensibility, nonsensibility

   1. archaiccountablespecificallyuncountableAffected or excessive artistic or emotional awareness; the fact or quality of being overemotional; overemotionality.

      ―Dear ſenſibility! ſource inexhauſted of all that's precious in our joys, or coſtly in our ſorrovvs!

      1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], “The Bourbonnois”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume I, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC, page 182

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      People of ſenſibility have ſeldom good tempers. The formation of the temper is the cool vvork of reaſon, vvhen, as life advances, ſhe mixes vvith happy art, jarring elements.

      1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Animadversions on Some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 184

      Romance! disgusted with deceit, / Far from thy motley court I fly, / Where Affectation holds her seat, / And sickly Sensibility; […]

      1807, George Gordon, Lord Byron, “[Fugitive Pieces.] To Romance.”, in Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems, Original and Translated, Newark [Nottinghamshire?]: […] S. and J. Ridge; […], published 1807, →OCLC, stanza V, page 136

      By degrees, Jean Paul began to be considered not a strange, crackbrained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon, but a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration.

      1827, Thomas Carlyle, “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter”, in R[alph] W[aldo] E[merson], editor, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, published 1838, →OCLC, pages 7–8

      [T]his lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she be indifferent when she heard [Wolfgang Amadeus] Mozart? The tender parts of Don Juan awakened in her raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when she went to say her prayers of a night, whether it was not wicked to feel so much delight as that with which "Vedrai Carino" and "Batti Batti" filled her gentle little bosom?

      1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 561

      Antonyms: insensibility, nonsensibility

5. archaiccountableuncountableAwareness; also, understanding.

   [M]any vvho mark vvith ſuch accuracy the courſe of time, appear to have little ſenſibility of the decline of life. Every man has ſomething to do vvhich he neglects; every man has faults to conquer vvhich he delays to combat.

   1759 February 10, [Samuel Johnson], “The Idler. No. 44.”, in The Universal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, number 45, London: […] R. Stevens, […], →OCLC, page 41, column 2

6. archaiccountableuncountableThe capacity of something to be perceived by the senses; perceptibility.

   Antonyms: insensibility

7. archaiccountableuncountablebiologyOf a plant or one of its parts: the ability to move in response to a stimulus.

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   The oscillatory and jerking movements of the leaves of Dionæa, which resemble those of the hypocotyl of the cabbage, are highly remarkable, as seen under the microscope. They continue night and day for some months, and are displayed by young unexpanded leaves, and by old ones which have lost their sensibility to a touch, but which, after absorbing animal matter, close their lobes.

   1880, Charles Darwin, assisted by Francis Darwin, “The Circumnutating Movements of the Several Parts of Mature Plants”, in The Power of Movement in Plants, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 261

8. uncountablehuman sciencesThe ability to perceive or sense as opposed to the ability to understand; also, in the philosophy of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): emotion or feeling as opposed to the will.

   [S]enſibility is but a ſpecies of the body; but vnderſtanding of the life: and therefore they preferred intellect before ſence: Senſible things are thoſe that are to be ſeen or touched. Intelligible can only be vnderſtood by the minde.

   1610, Saint Augustine, “How the Platonists Conceiued of the Naturall Part of Phylosophy”, in J[ohn] H[ealey], transl., St. Augustine, of the Citie of God: […], [London]: […] George Eld, →OCLC, book XV, page 307

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   [page 33] This predicate (attribute) is only so far applied to things, as they appear to us—that is, as they are objects of sensibility. The constant form of this Receptivity which we name Sensibility, is a necessary condition of all relationships, wherein objects are envisaged as external to us, […] [page 57] If we will term the receptivity of our mind for receiving representations, so far as it is in some way affected, sensibility, so is, on the other hand, the faculty of itself bringing forth representations, or the Spontaneity of the cognition, the Understanding. […] Without sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none be thought.

   1838, Immanuel Kant, “Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space”; “Introduction. Idea of a Transcendental Logic. I. Of Logic in General.”, in [Francis Haywood], transl., Critick of Pure Reason […], London: William Pickering, →OCLC, part I (Of Transcendental Æsthetick), 1st part (Transcendental Æsthetick), pages 33 and 57

9. countableobsoleteuncountableAn emotional sense or understanding of something.
10. countableobsoleteuncountableA sign or token of appreciation or gratitude.
11. historicaluncountableartSynonym of Empfindsamkeit.

    Synonyms: Empfindsamkeit