different between sensibility vs abirritate

English

Etymology

sensible +? -ity, from Middle French sensibilité, and its source, Latin s?nsibilit?s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?ns??b?l?ti/

Noun

sensibility (countable and uncountable, plural sensibilities)

1. The ability to sense, feel or perceive; responsiveness to sensory stimuli; sensitivity. [from 15th c.]
   • 2011, William Thomson, Reprint of Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism, p. 204:

     The high sensibility of the divided ring electrometer renders this test really very easy […].

2. Emotional or artistic awareness; keen sensitivity to matters of feeling or creative expression. [from 17th c.]
   • 2015, Kathleen T. Galvin, Monica Prendergast, Poetic Inquiry II, p. 266:

     By poetic ethic I am speaking about the intention to act on, and incorporate into a narrative configuration, values and beliefs that promote a poetic ontology and a poetic sensibility.

3. (now rare, archaic) Excessive emotional awareness; the fact or quality of being overemotional. [from 18th c.]
   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Penguin 2004, p. 106:

     People of sensibility have seldom good tempers.

4. (in the plural) An acute awareness or feeling. [from 18th c.]

5. (obsolete) The capacity to be perceived by the senses. [15th–17th c.]

Translations

Further reading

• "sensibility" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 280.

English

Etymology

ab- +? irritate

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /æb???.??te?t/

Verb

abirritate (third-person singular simple present abirritates, present participle abirritating, simple past and past participle abirritated)

1. (transitive, medicine) To diminish the sensibility of; to debilitate; to soothe.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations