Sensibility

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˌsɛn(t)sɪˈbɪlɪti/

Definitions

1. The faculty of perceiving and reacting to emotions or beauty is vital for nuanced interaction with one's surroundings and individuals
2. A quality that reflects a heightened awareness of emotional and artistic dimensions enhances personal connections and aesthetic enjoyment
3. An ability to detect and respond to emotional or artistic stimuli ; the tendency to be influenced by emotions or physical sensations

Etymology: The most striking shift here is that "sensibility" once meant the body's raw capacity to feel. Medieval writers used it for physical sensitivity, such as the ability to feel pain, and for the senses themselves, which the word could describe in the plural. It came from Latin "sensibilis," meaning perceptible, which itself came from "sentire," to perceive with the senses. The Latin noun "sensibilitas" carried the same core idea of sensation and perception. The modern sense of refined emotional responsiveness grew from that bodily root. Over time the word moved from the senses toward the mind and then toward feeling, so that a "sensibility" came to mean a person's delicate capacity to be moved by beauty or by others' emotions. Its philosophical use shows the drift clearly: in Immanuel Kant's philosophy, sense 6 treats it as emotion or feeling set against the will. That sense is a calque of German "Sinnlichkeit," which carries overtones of sensuality.

Synonyms: sensitivity, perception

Antonyms: insensitivity, indifference