sensibility

sensibility
    n 1: mental responsiveness and awareness [syn: {sensibility},
         {esthesia}, {aesthesia}] [ant: {insensibility}]
    2: refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions;
       "cruelty offended his sensibility"
    3: (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty
       of sensation; "sensitivity to pain" [syn: {sensitivity},
       {sensitiveness}, {sensibility}]
    

Sensibility \Sen`si*bil"i*ty\, n.; pl. {Sensibilities}. [Cf. F.
   sensibilit['e], LL. sensibilitas.]
   1. (Physiol.) The quality or state of being sensible, or
      capable of sensation; capacity to feel or perceive.
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   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. "Sensibilities
      so fine!" --Cowper.
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            The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of
            sensibility.                          --Burke.
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            His sensibilities seem rather to have been those of
            patriotism than of wounded pride.     --Marshall.
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   3. Experience of sensation; actual feeling.
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            This adds greatly to my sensibility.  --Burke.
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   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.
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   Syn: Taste; susceptibility; feeling. See {Taste}.
        [1913 Webster]
    

129 Moby Thesaurus words for "sensibility":
      acuity, acumen, acuteness, adaptability, affectibility, affection,
      affectivity, agreeability, amenability, apperception, appreciation,
      appreciation of differences, appreciativeness, artistic judgment,
      astuteness, awareness, bendability, cogency, cognition, cognizance,
      connoisseurship, consciousness, critical niceness, criticalness,
      delicacy, discernment, discriminating taste, discriminatingness,
      discrimination, discriminativeness, ductibility, ductility,
      elasticity, emotion, emotions, extendibility, extensibility,
      facility, farseeingness, farsightedness, fastidiousness, feel,
      feeling, feelings, fictility, fine palate, finesse, flexibility,
      flexility, flexuousness, foresight, foresightedness, formativeness,
      give, heart, impressibility, impressionability, incisiveness,
      insight, judiciousness, keenness, limberness, limen, litheness,
      longheadedness, longsightedness, making distinctions, malleability,
      mindfulness, moldability, niceness of distinction, nicety, noesis,
      note, notice, openness to sensation, palate, penetration,
      perceptibility, perception, perceptiveness, percipience,
      perspicaciousness, perspicacity, perspicuity, perspicuousness,
      physical sensibility, plasticity, pliability, pliancy, providence,
      readiness of feeling, realization, receptiveness, receptivity,
      recognition, refined discrimination, refined palate, refinement,
      responsiveness, sagaciousness, sagacity, selectiveness,
      sensation level, sense, sensibilities, sensibleness, sensitiveness,
      sensitivity, sentience, sentiency, sentiments, sequacity,
      springiness, submissiveness, subtlety, suppleness, susceptibility,
      susceptivity, tact, tactfulness, taste, tensileness, tensility,
      threshold of sensation, tractability, tractility, trenchancy,
      willowiness