different between sensible vs appropriate

English

Etymology

From Latin s?nsibilis (“perceptible by the senses, having feeling, sensible”), from senti? (“to feel, perceive”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?sen.s?.bl?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?n.s?.bl?/

Adjective

sensible (comparative more sensible, superlative most sensible or sensiblest)

1. (now dated or formal) Perceptible by the senses.
   • 1751, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies (page 1)

     Air is sensible to the Touch by its Motion, and by its Resistance to Bodies moved in it.

   • 1778, William Lewis, The New Dispensatory (page 91)

     The sensible qualities of argentina promise no great virtue of this kind; for to the taste it discovers only a slight roughishness, from whence it may be presumed to be entitled to a place only among the milder corroborants.

   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, page 45:

     It has been vouchsafed, for example, to very few Christian believers to have had a sensible vision of their Saviour.

2. Easily perceived; appreciable.
   • The discovery of the mines of America […] does not seem to have had any very sensible effect upon the prices of things in England.

3. (archaic) Able to feel or perceive.
4. (archaic) Liable to external impression; easily affected; sensitive.

   a sensible thermometer
5. Of or pertaining to the senses; sensory.
6. (archaic) Cognizant; having the perception of something; aware of something.
   • , Book II, Chapter I

     He cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it.

   • 1810, Thomas Green, Extracts from the diary of a lover of literature

     we are now sensible that it would have been absurd
7. Acting with or showing good sense; able to make good judgements based on reason.
   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 230b.

     They ask questions of someone who thinks he's got something sensible to say on some matter when actually he hasn't.

8. Characterized more by usefulness or practicality than by fashionableness, especially of clothing.
   • 1999, Neil Gaiman, Stardust (2001 Perennial Edition), page 8,

     They would walk, on fair evenings, around the village, and discuss the theory of crop rotation, and the weather, and other such sensible matters.

Usage notes

• "Sensible" describes the reasonable way in which a person may think about things or do things:

  It wouldn't be sensible to start all over again now.

It is not comparable to its cognates in certain languages (see below).

• "Sensitive" describes an emotional way in which a person may react to things:

  He has always been a sensitive child.

  I didn’t realize she was so sensitive about her work.

Related terms

• sense
• sensory
• sensual
• sensuous
• supersensible

Translations

Noun

sensible (plural sensibles)

1. (obsolete) Sensation; sensibility.
2. (obsolete) That which impresses itself on the senses; anything perceptible.
   • 1857, William Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophyyy

     Aristotle distinguished sensibles into common and proper.

3. (obsolete) That which has sensibility; a sensitive being.

   • This melancholy extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles.

Further reading

• sensible in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• sensible in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• sensible at OneLook Dictionary Search

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin s?nsibilis, attested from the 14th century.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /s?n?si.bl?/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /sen?si.ble/

Adjective

sensible (masculine and feminine plural sensibles)

1. sentient
2. sensitive

Derived terms

• sensiblement

Related terms

• insensible
• sensibilitat
• sentir

References

Further reading

• “sensible” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “sensible” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “sensible” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??.sibl/

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin s?nsibilis.

Adjective

sensible (plural sensibles)

1. sensitive

Derived terms

• sensibilité
• sensiblement

Related terms

• sentir

Etymology 2

Ellipsis of note sensible.

Noun

sensible f (plural sensibles)

1. (music) leading tone

Further reading

• “sensible” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

sensible

1. inflection of sensibel:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Spanish

Etymology

From Latin s?nsibilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sen?sible/, [s?n?si.??le]

Adjective

sensible (plural sensibles)

1. sensitive
2. sentient
3. responsive

Usage notes

• Sensible is a false friend, and does not mean reasonable in Spanish. Spanish equivalents are shown above, in the "Translations" section of the English entry sensible.

Antonyms

• insensible

Related terms

Further reading

• “sensible” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

English

Etymology

From Middle English appropriaten, borrowed from Latin appropriatus, past participle of approprio (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + proprio (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.?t/, /??p???.p?i?.?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.?t/, /??p?o?.p?i.?t/

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.e?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.e?t/

Adjective

appropriate (comparative more appropriate, superlative most appropriate)

1. Suitable or fit; proper.
   • 1798-1801, Beilby Porteus, Lecture XI delivered in the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster

     in its strict and appropriate meaning

   • 1710, Edward Stillingfleet, Several Conferences Between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome

     appropriate acts of divine worship
2. Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper.
3. (obsolete) Set apart for a particular use or person; reserved.

Synonyms

• (suited for): apt, felicitous, fitting, suitable; see also Thesaurus:suitable

Antonyms

• (all senses): inappropriate

Derived terms

• appropriateness

Related terms

• proper
• property

Translations

Verb

appropriate (third-person singular simple present appropriates, present participle appropriating, simple past and past participle appropriated)

1. (transitive, archaic) To make suitable to; to suit.
   • 1790, Helen Maria Williams, Julia, Routledge 2016, p. 67:

     Under the towers were a number of gloomy subterraneous apartments with vaulted roofs, the use of which imagination was left to guess, and could only appropriate to punishment and horror.

   • 1802, William Paley, Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

     Were we to take a portion of the skin, and contemplate its exquisite sensibility, so finely appropriated […] we should have no occasion to draw our argument, for the twentieth time, from the structure of the eye or the ear.

2. (transitive) To take to oneself; to claim or use, especially as by an exclusive right.
3. (transitive) To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, especially in exclusion of all others; with to or for.
   • 2012, The Washington Post, David Nakamura and Tom Hamburger, "Put armed police in every school, NRA urges"

     “I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation,” LaPierre said.

4. (transitive, Britain, ecclesiastical, law) To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Blackstone to this entry?)

Synonyms

• (to take to oneself): help oneself, impropriate; see also Thesaurus:take or Thesaurus:steal
• (to set apart for): allocate, earmark; see also Thesaurus:set apart

Translations

Further reading

• appropriate at OneLook Dictionary Search
• appropriate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Italian

Adjective

appropriate f pl

1. feminine plural of appropriato