sensitivity vs sensibility

Question

Hi, everyone:What's the difference between the two words?Do they share one meaning in some situatioin?

Likeguslee · Accepted Answer

sensibility (sèn´se-bîl´î-tê) noun plural sensibilities

1. The ability to feel or perceive.

2. a. Keen intellectual perception: the sensibility of a painter to color. b. Mental or emotional responsiveness toward something, such as the feelings of another.

3. Receptiveness to impression, whether pleasant or unpleasant; acuteness of feeling. Often used in the plural: "The sufferings of the Cuban people shocked our sensibilities" (George F. Kennan).

4. Refined awareness and appreciation in matters of feeling.

5. The quality of being affected by changes in the environment.

Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

sensitivity (sèn´sî-tîv´î-tê) noun plural sensitivities

1. The quality or condition of being sensitive.

2. The capacity of an organ or organism to respond to stimulation.

3. Electronics. The degree of response of a receiver or an instrument to an incoming signal or to a change in the incoming signal; the signal strength required by an FM tuner to reduce noise and distortion.

4. The degree of response of a plate or film to light, especially to light of a specified wavelength.

Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The meanings of these two words are quite different as defined by the dictionary.

A sensitive person may be easily offended by an off-color joke, but without sensibility, that same person may be quite unsympathetic to the sufferings of war victims in Iraq.

Hly2004 · Answer

Thanks!

Anonymous · Answer

Sensibility lays close to skill while u may use skill to get threw life ie jobs ..sensibility is more like being able to play piano blind folded perfectly while someone may have the skill to follow it they cannot come close to a grandmaster

sensitivity vs sensibility

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