Sensibility /(?)/

Sen·si·bil·i·ty

Sensibility

n.

pl. Sensibilities

  1. The quality or state of being sensible, or capable of sensation; capacity to feel or perceive. (Physiol.)
  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.
    The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility.
    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.
  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.