sensibility

English

Etymology

sensible +‎ -ity, from Middle French sensibilité, and its source, Latin sēnsibilitās.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsɛnsɪˈbɪlɪti/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

sensibility (countable and uncountable, plural sensibilities)

1. The ability to sense, feel or perceive; responsiveness to sensory stimuli; sensitivity.
   • 2011, William Thomson, Reprint of Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism, page 204:

     The high sensibility of the divided ring electrometer renders this test really very easy […].

2. Emotional or artistic awareness; keen sensitivity to matters of feeling or creative expression.
   • 2015, Kathleen T. Galvin, Monica Prendergast, Poetic Inquiry II, page 266:

     By poetic ethic I am speaking about the intention to act on, and incorporate into a narrative configuration, values and beliefs that promote a poetic ontology and a poetic sensibility.

3. (now rare, archaic) Excessive emotional awareness; the fact or quality of being overemotional.
   • 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, , published 1792, →OCLC:

     People of sensibility have seldom good tempers.

4. (in the plural) An acute awareness or feeling.

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

   • 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 11:

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

5. (obsolete) The capacity to be perceived by the senses.

Translations

Further reading

• "sensibility" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 280.