sensibility Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun mental responsiveness and awareness
    aesthesia; esthesia.
  2. noun refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions
    • cruelty offended his sensibility
  3. noun (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation
    sensitivity; sensitiveness.
    • sensitivity to pain

WordNet

Sen`si*bil"i*ty noun
Etymology
Cf. F. sensibilité, LL. sensibilitas.
Wordforms
plural Sensibilities
Definitions
  1. (Physiol.) The quality or state of being sensible, or capable of sensation; capacity to feel or perceive.
  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.
    The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility. Burke.
    His sensibilities seem rather to have been those of patriotism than of wounded pride. Marshall.
  3. Experience of sensation; actual feeling.
    This adds greatly to my sensibility. Burke.
  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. usu. sensitivity Syn. -- Taste; susceptibility; feeling. See Taste.

Webster 1913