[syn: sensitivity, sensitiveness, sensibility]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sensibility \Sen`si*bil"i*ty\, n.; pl. Sensibilities. [Cf. F.
sensibilit['e], LL. sensibilitas.]
1. (Physiol.) The quality or state of being sensible, or
capable of sensation; capacity to feel or perceive.
[1913 Webster]
2. The capacity of emotion or feeling, as distinguished from
the intellect and the will; peculiar susceptibility of
impression, pleasurable or painful; delicacy of feeling;
quick emotion or sympathy; as, sensibility to pleasure or
pain; sensibility to shame or praise; exquisite
sensibility; -- often used in the plural. "Sensibilities
so fine!" --Cowper.
[1913 Webster]
The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of
sensibility. --Burke.
[1913 Webster]
His sensibilities seem rather to have been those of
patriotism than of wounded pride. --Marshall.
[1913 Webster]
3. Experience of sensation; actual feeling.
[1913 Webster]
This adds greatly to my sensibility. --Burke.
[1913 Webster]
4. That quality of an instrument which makes it indicate very
slight changes of condition; delicacy; as, the sensibility
of a balance, or of a thermometer.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Taste; susceptibility; feeling. See Taste.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
sensibility
n 1: mental responsiveness and awareness [syn: sensibility,
esthesia, aesthesia] [ant: insensibility]
2: refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions;
"cruelty offended his sensibility"
3: (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty
of sensation; "sensitivity to pain" [syn: sensitivity,
sensitiveness, sensibility]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
129 Moby Thesaurus words for "sensibility":
acuity, acumen, acuteness, adaptability, affectibility, affection,
affectivity, agreeability, amenability, apperception, appreciation,
appreciation of differences, appreciativeness, artistic judgment,
astuteness, awareness, bendability, cogency, cognition, cognizance,
connoisseurship, consciousness, critical niceness, criticalness,
delicacy, discernment, discriminating taste, discriminatingness,
discrimination, discriminativeness, ductibility, ductility,
elasticity, emotion, emotions, extendibility, extensibility,
facility, farseeingness, farsightedness, fastidiousness, feel,
feeling, feelings, fictility, fine palate, finesse, flexibility,
flexility, flexuousness, foresight, foresightedness, formativeness,
give, heart, impressibility, impressionability, incisiveness,
insight, judiciousness, keenness, limberness, limen, litheness,
longheadedness, longsightedness, making distinctions, malleability,
mindfulness, moldability, niceness of distinction, nicety, noesis,
note, notice, openness to sensation, palate, penetration,
perceptibility, perception, perceptiveness, percipience,
perspicaciousness, perspicacity, perspicuity, perspicuousness,
physical sensibility, plasticity, pliability, pliancy, providence,
readiness of feeling, realization, receptiveness, receptivity,
recognition, refined discrimination, refined palate, refinement,
responsiveness, sagaciousness, sagacity, selectiveness,
sensation level, sense, sensibilities, sensibleness, sensitiveness,
sensitivity, sentience, sentiency, sentiments, sequacity,
springiness, submissiveness, subtlety, suppleness, susceptibility,
susceptivity, tact, tactfulness, taste, tensileness, tensility,
threshold of sensation, tractability, tractility, trenchancy,
willowiness