sensibility

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsɛnsɪˈbɪlɪti/

Noun

sensibility (countable and uncountable, plural sensibilities)

1. The ability to sense, feel or perceive; responsiveness to sensory stimuli; sensitivity. [from 15th c.]
   • 2011, William Thomson, Reprint of Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism, p. 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. [from 17th c.]
   • 2015, Kathleen T. Galvin, Monica Prendergast, Poetic Inquiry II, p. 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. [from 18th c.]
   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Penguin 2004, p. 106:

     People of sensibility have seldom good tempers.

4. (in the plural) An acute awareness or feeling. [from 18th c.]
   • 2019, Li Huang; James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, DOI:10.1080/01434632.2019.1596115, page 11:

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

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

5. (obsolete) The capacity to be perceived by the senses. [15th–17th c.]

Translations

the ability to sense, feel or perceive; especially to be sensitive to the feelings of another

• Russian: чуткость (ru) (čutkostʹ)

an acute awareness or feeling

• Russian: чувства (ru) pl (čuvstva)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Catalan: sensibilitat f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 感觉 (zh), 感受性 (zh), 知觉 (zh), 感性 (zh)

• German: Sensibilität (de), f
• Irish: céadfaíocht f, céadfacht f

• Japanese: 感覚 (ja) (kankaku), センス (ja) (sensu)
• Korean: 감각 (ko) (gamgak), 감수성 (ko) (gamsuseong), 감각력 (gamgangnyeok)
• Portuguese: sensibilidade (pt) f
• Spanish: sensibilidad (es) f

Further reading

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