SENSIBILITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sensibility mean? 

• SENSIBILITY (noun)
  The noun SENSIBILITY has 3 senses:

1. mental responsiveness and awareness

2. refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions

3. (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation

  Familiarity information: SENSIBILITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SENSIBILITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Mental responsiveness and awareness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

aesthesia; esthesia; sensibility

Hypernyms ("sensibility" is a kind of...):

consciousness (an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation)

Antonym:

insensibility (a lack of sensibility)

Derivation:

sensible (able to feel or perceive)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Context example:

cruelty offended his sensibility

Hypernyms ("sensibility" is a kind of...):

sensitiveness; sensitivity (sensitivity to emotional feelings (of self and others))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sensibility"):

insight; perceptiveness; perceptivity (a feeling of understanding)

sensuousness (a sensuous feeling)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

sensibility; sensitiveness; sensitivity

Context example:

sensitivity to pain

Hypernyms ("sensibility" is a kind of...):

sensation; sense; sensory faculty; sentience; sentiency (the faculty through which the external world is apprehended)

Domain category:

physiology (the branch of the biological sciences dealing with the functioning of organisms)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sensibility"):

acuteness (a sensitivity that is keen and highly developed)

hypersensitivity (extreme sensitivity)

reactivity; responsiveness (responsive to stimulation)

exteroception (sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body)

interoception (sensitivity to stimuli originating inside of the body)

photosensitivity; radiosensitivity (sensitivity to the action of radiant energy)

Derivation:

sensible (readily perceived by the senses)

sensible (able to feel or perceive)

 Context examples 

Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's account, which she could not give any sincere explanation of.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They read, they talked, they sang together; his musical talents were considerable; and he read with all the sensibility and spirit which Edward had unfortunately wanted.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Under that muscled body of his he was a mass of quivering sensibilities.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He knew that he had responded to something from without, that his sensibility had been touched by a changing something in his environment; but what it was he could not discover.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

For the first time, since their renewed acquaintance, she felt that she was betraying the least sensibility of the two.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I felt myself struggling to awake to some call of my instincts; nay, my very soul was struggling, and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner not often united with great sensibility.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

You have hosted Saturn on your Sun in Capricorn since December 2017 and ever since, you have been beset with challenges that you calmly met head-on with your characteristic stoic sensibility and steadfast courage.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)