Word of the Day : April 3, 2018

sensibility \sen-suh-BIL-uh-tee\ noun

Definition

1 : ability to receive sensations : sensitiveness

2 : peculiar susceptibility to a pleasurable or painful impression (as from praise or a slight) — often used in plural

3 : awareness of and responsiveness toward something (such as emotion in another)

4 : refined or excessive sensitiveness in emotion and taste

Did You Know?

From Latin sentire ("to feel"), the meanings of sensibility run the gamut from mere sensation of the sense organs to excessive sentimentality. In between is a capacity for delicate appreciation, a sense often pluralized. In Jane Austen's books, sensibility, a word much appreciated by the novelist, is mostly an admirable quality she attributed to or found lacking in her characters: "He had … a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely" (of Mr. Elliot in Persuasion). In Sense and Sensibility, however, Austen starts out by ascribing to Marianne sensibleness, on the one hand, but an "excess of sensibility" on the other: "Her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation … she was everything but prudent."

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                                  mournful
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                                  plainspoken
                                  homely








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Aired April 3, 2018

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