[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.
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The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of
sensibility. --Burke.
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His sensibilities seem rather to have been those of
patriotism than of wounded pride. --Marshall.
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3. Experience of sensation; actual feeling.
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This adds greatly to my sensibility. --Burke.
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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.
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Syn: Taste; susceptibility; feeling. See Taste.
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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]