sensibility

English

WOTD – 16 December 2025

Etymology

From Late Middle English sensibilite (“physical ability to sense or perceive; sensitivity to pain; type of perception by a sense organ; perception, understanding; image imprinted on the mind during perception; (philosophy) capacity of the soul to receive information from the senses, perceptibility; (in the plural) the senses”),[1] from Middle French sensibilité and Old French sensibilité (“characteristic or state of being capable of sensation”) (modern French sensibilité), and from their etymon Late Latin sēnsibilitās (“intelligence; perception, sensation; sensitiveness; meaning or sense of words”), from Latin sēnsibilis (“detectable; perceptible, sensible”) (from sentiō (“to perceive with the senses, feel, sense; to be aware or sensible of; etc.”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sent- (“to perceive; to think”)) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives denoting a capacity or worth of being acted upon)) + -tās (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting states of being).[2] By surface analysis, sensible +‎ -ity (suffix forming nouns).

Sense 6 (“in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant: emotion or feeling as opposed to the will”) is a use of the word as a calque of German Sinnlichkeit (“receptivity and devotion to what is experienced by the senses; desire for or openness to eroticism, sensuality”).[2]

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌsɛn(t)sɪˈbɪlɪti/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˌsɛn(t)səˈbɪləti/, [-ɾi]
  • Rhymes: -ɪlɪti
  • Hyphenation: sen‧si‧bil‧i‧ty

Noun

sensibility (countable and uncountable, plural sensibilities)

  1. (countable, uncountable, often in the plural) Emotions or feelings arising from or relating to aesthetic or moral standards, especially those which are sensitive and thus likely to be hurt or offended. [from 18th c.]
    Synonym: susceptibilities
    I apologize if I offended your sensibilities, but that’s the truth of the matter.
    • 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:
      There is no way more sure of rousing the sensibilities of a commercial people, than by touching their pockets.
    • 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:
      However, given current sensibilities about individual privacy and data protection, the recording of oral data is becoming increasingly onerous for researchers […]
    • 2024 June 18, Spencer Klavan, “A Matter of Taste”, in The American Mind‎[1], Upland, Calif.: Claremont Institute, archived from the original on 2 July 2025:
      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.
  2. (uncountable) The 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. [from 15th c.]
    Antonyms: insensibility, nonsensibility, (obsolete) unsensibility
  3. (uncountable) The 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.
    • 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:
      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].
    • 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:
      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; […]
  4. (uncountable) Keen sensitivity to matters of creative expression or feeling; artistic or emotional awareness. [from 17th c.]
    Antonyms: insensibility, nonsensibility
    1. (specifically, archaic) Affected or excessive artistic or emotional awareness; the fact or quality of being overemotional; overemotionality. [from 18th c.]
  5. (uncountable, archaic)
    1. Awareness; also, understanding.
      • 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:
        [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.
    2. The capacity of something to be perceived by the senses; perceptibility.
      Antonym: insensibility
    3. (botany) Of a plant or one of its parts: the ability to move in response to a stimulus.
      • 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:
        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.
  7. (uncountable, philosophy) The 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.
    • 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:
      [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.
    • 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:
      [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.
  8. (countable, obsolete)
    1. An emotional sense or understanding of something.
    2. A sign or token of appreciation or gratitude.

Derived terms

Translations

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Translations to be checked

References

  1. ^ “sensibilitẹ̄, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 “sensibility, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2025; “sensibility, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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