sensibility

noun

1. (countable, in-plural, often, uncountable)Emotions or feelings arising from or relating to aesthetic or moral standards, especially those which are sensitive and thus likely to be hurt or offended.

   “I apologize if I offended your sensibilities, but that’s the truth of the matter.”

   “There is no way more sure of rousing the sensibilities of a commercial people, than by touching their pockets.”

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

   “Many earnest consumers on the Right feel so legitimately embattled by the nonstop streaming feed of hate speech and psyoppery directed at them that they think they have no choice but to reconfigure their artistic sensibilities accordingly.”

2. (uncountable)The ability to feel, perceive, or sense; responsiveness to sensory stimuli; sensitivity; also, the degree to which someone or something (especially a sensory organ or tissue) is able to respond to sensory stimuli.

   “[B]y the ſharpnes therof [i.e., of “fumosity” caused by undigested meat], it prycketh and annoyeth the ſynewes, whiche make ſenſibilitie, the rootes of whome, ar in the brayn, and from thenſe paſſeth through all the body.”

   “Perſons in fevers, and I believe, in moſt maniacal caſes, experience great torment from their preternatural acuteneſs. An increaſed, no leſs than an impaired ſenſibility, induces a ſtate of diſeaſe and ſuffering.”

3. (uncountable)The quality of being easily affected by external forces or stimuli; also, of a measuring instrument: the quality of being able to detect small changes in the environment.

   “About an Attempt to examine the Motions and Senſibility of the Carteſian Materia ſubtilis, or the Æther, with a pair of Bellovvs (made of a Bladder) in the exhausted Receiver [chapter name].”

   “The high sensibility of the divided ring electrometer renders this test really very easy, as not more than from ten to twenty cells are required; […]”

4. (uncountable)Keen sensitivity to matters of creative expression or feeling; artistic or emotional awareness.

   “Our Lord [Jesus] is ſaied to haue indurated Pharaoes hart, not that he brought the hardnes it ſelfe, but for that his deſertes ſo requiring, he did not mollifie it, vvith ſenſibilitie of fear infuſed from aboue.”

   “Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. […] It is such an exquisite sensibility, as warns her to shun the first appearance of every thing which is hurtful.”

   “But, though a degree of ſenſibility is requiſite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not neceſſarily ariſe from a quick ſenſibility of pleaſure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater complexional ſenſibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than the beſt judge by the moſt perfect; […]”

   “I could not excuse a man's having more music than love—more ear than eye—a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.”

   “A poet who recites his own verses from ten to five with the tears rolling down his face should decidedly be rebuked for his lack of sensibility—his lack of sensibility to those grand rhythms of the social harmony, crudely called manners.”

5. (archaic, countable, specifically, uncountable)Keen sensitivity to matters of creative expression or feeling; artistic or emotional awareness.

   “―Dear ſenſibility! ſource inexhauſted of all that's precious in our joys, or coſtly in our ſorrovvs!”

   “People of ſenſibility have ſeldom good tempers. The formation of the temper is the cool vvork of reaſon, vvhen, as life advances, ſhe mixes vvith happy art, jarring elements.”

   “Romance! disgusted with deceit, / Far from thy motley court I fly, / Where Affectation holds her seat, / And sickly Sensibility; […]”

   “By degrees, Jean Paul began to be considered not a strange, crackbrained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon, but a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration.”

   “[T]his lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she be indifferent when she heard [Wolfgang Amadeus] Mozart? The tender parts of Don Juan awakened in her raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when she went to say her prayers of a night, whether it was not wicked to feel so much delight as that with which "Vedrai Carino" and "Batti Batti" filled her gentle little bosom?”

6. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Awareness; also, understanding.

   “[M]any vvho mark vvith ſuch accuracy the courſe of time, appear to have little ſenſibility of the decline of life. Every man has ſomething to do vvhich he neglects; every man has faults to conquer vvhich he delays to combat.”

7. (archaic, countable, uncountable)The capacity of something to be perceived by the senses; perceptibility.
8. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Of a plant or one of its parts: the ability to move in response to a stimulus.

   “The oscillatory and jerking movements of the leaves of Dionæa, which resemble those of the hypocotyl of the cabbage, are highly remarkable, as seen under the microscope. They continue night and day for some months, and are displayed by young unexpanded leaves, and by old ones which have lost their sensibility to a touch, but which, after absorbing animal matter, close their lobes.”

9. (uncountable)The ability to perceive or sense as opposed to the ability to understand; also, in the philosophy of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): emotion or feeling as opposed to the will.

   “[S]enſibility is but a ſpecies of the body; but vnderſtanding of the life: and therefore they preferred intellect before ſence: Senſible things are thoſe that are to be ſeen or touched. Intelligible can only be vnderſtood by the minde.”

10. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)An emotional sense or understanding of something.
11. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A sign or token of appreciation or gratitude.