Definition of: sensibility

(sen′sə·bil′ə·tē) noun plural ·ties
1. The capability of sensation; power to perceive or feel.
2. The capacity of sensation and rational emotion, as distinguished from intellect and will.
3. Susceptibility or sensitiveness to outside influences or mental impressions; sometimes, abnormal sensitiveness: often in the plural.
4. Appreciation accompanying mental apprehension; discerning judgment.
5. Delicacy or sensitiveness of an instrument.
6. Responsiveness to pathos or to artistic or esthetic values.
7. Archaic Sentimentality. Synonyms: sensitiveness, sensibility, susceptibility. In popular use sensibility denotes sometimes capacity of feeling of any kind; as, sensibility to heat or cold; sometimes, a peculiar readiness to be the subject of feeling, especially of the higher feelings: as the sensibility of the artist or the poet. Sensitiveness denotes an especial delicacy of sensibility, ready to be excited by the slightest cause, as displayed, for instance, in the sensitive plant. Susceptibility is rather a capacity to receive, to contain feeling, so that a person of great susceptibility is capable of being readily and deeply moved; sensitiveness is more superficial, susceptibility more pervading. In physics, the sensitiveness of a magnetic needle is the ease with which it may be deflected, as by another magnet; its susceptibility is the degree to which it can be magnetized by a given magnetic force or the amount of magnetism it will hold. A person of great sensitiveness is quickly and keenly affected by any external influence, as by music, pathos, or ridicule, while a person of great susceptibility is not only touched, but moved to his utmost soul. See FEELING. Antonyms: coldness, deadness, hardness, insensibility, numbness, unconsciousness.