sensitiveness
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sen·si·tive
(sĕn′sĭ-tĭv)adj.
1. Capable of perceiving with a sense or senses: Aristotle held that animals have a sensitive soul, but only humans have a rational one.
2. Responsive or capable of responding to a chemical stimulus or substance. Used especially of a cell, tissue, or organism.
3.
a. Susceptible to slight differences or changes in the environment: a plant that is sensitive to rapid changes in temperature; heat-sensitive enzymes.
b. Readily altered by the action of an agent: film that is sensitive to light.
c. Registering slight differences or changes of condition. Used of an instrument.
4.
a. Easily irritated: sensitive skin.
b. Predisposed to inflammation as a result of preexisting allergy or disease: People with celiac disease are sensitive to gluten.
5.
a. Aware of or careful about the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others: The book is a sensitive treatment of a troubled friendship.
b. Easily hurt, upset, or offended: Teenagers tend to be especially sensitive about their appearance.
6. Fluctuating or tending to fluctuate, especially in price: sensitive stocks.
7. Of or relating to secret or classified information: sensitive defense data; holds a sensitive position in the State Department.
n.
1. A sensitive person.
2. One held to be endowed with psychic or occult powers.
[Middle English, from Old French sensitif, from Medieval Latin sēnsitīvus, from Latin sēnsus, sense; see sense.]
sen′si·tive·ly adv.
sen′si·tive·ness n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Sensitiveness
See Also: KINDNESS
- Bruise easily like a ripe pear —A. C. Greene
- Ego … as delicate as tissue paper —Christopher Buckley
- Exposed as if on a raft —Joseph Conrad
- Felt like a shell-fish that had lost its shell —Olivia Manning
- Felt like a vegetable without its skin: raw and vulnerable —Laurie Colwin
- Felt myself exposed … as sharply as in a photograph —John Updike
- Gentle as milk —Sylvia Berkman
- Inherited sensibilities like jewels as red as rubies and blood —Janet Flanner
- Interpreted the episode as sensitively as an unleashed bull would —Z. Vance Wilson
- My sensibility begins to screech like chalk upon the blackboard scrawled —Delmore Schwartz
- A person who is always having her feelings hurt is about as pleasant a companion as a pebble in a shoe —Elbert Hubbard
A non-gender specific paraphrased from the original which began with “The woman.”
- Sensitive as a barometer —Thomas Bailey Aldrich
- Sensitive as a stick of dynamite or a hand grenade —Mike Sommer
- [An alert horse, with ears turning and twitching to catch all sounds] sensitive as radar —Jilly Cooper
- Sensitive as the leaves of a silver birch —Joseph Hergesheimer
- Sensitive as the money market —Thomas Hardy
- (Taste buds as) sensitive as the skin on a mailman’s feet —Ira Wood
- Thick-skinned as a brontosaurus —Francis Goldwin, quoted on his sensitiveness to anything but imitations of his company’s toy dinosaurs, Wall Street Journal, June 15, 1987
- Touchy as a second degree burn —Harry Prince
- Vulnerable as one of those primitive creatures between two skins or two shells, like a lobster or a crab —David R. Slavitt
- (You are) vulnerable as the first buds of the maple —Marge Piercy
- With all her stubbornness and punch, she could be sliced like scrapple —Sharon Sheehe Stark
Similes Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1988 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
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| Noun | 1. | sensitiveness - sensitivity to emotional feelings (of self and others) feeling - the experiencing of affective and emotional states; "she had a feeling of euphoria"; "he had terrible feelings of guilt"; "I disliked him and the feeling was mutual" oversensitiveness - sensitivity leading to easy irritation or upset sensibility - refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions; "cruelty offended his sensibility" feelings - emotional or moral sensitivity (especially in relation to personal principles or dignity); "the remark hurt his feelings" |
| 2. |  sensitiveness - (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation; "sensitivity to pain"sensory faculty, sentiency, sentience, sense, sensation - the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; "in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing" acuteness - a sensitivity that is keen and highly developed; "dogs have a remarkable acuteness of smell" hypersensitivity - extreme sensitivity reactivity, responsiveness - responsive to stimulation exteroception - sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body interoception - sensitivity to stimuli originating inside of the body photosensitivity, radiosensitivity - sensitivity to the action of radiant energy physiology - the branch of the biological sciences dealing with the functioning of organisms | |
| 3. | sensitiveness - the ability to respond to physical stimuli or to register small physical amounts or differences; "a galvanometer of extreme sensitivity"; "the sensitiveness of Mimosa leaves does not depend on a change of growth" physical property - any property used to characterize matter and energy and their interactions frequency response - (electronics) a curve representing the output-to-input ratio of a transducer as a function of frequency | |
| 4. | sensitiveness - the ability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment antenna, feeler - sensitivity similar to that of a receptor organ; "he had a special antenna for public relations" defensiveness - excessive sensitivity to criticism; "his defensiveness was manifested in hurt silence"; "the fear of being sued for malpractice has magnified physicians' defensiveness" perceptiveness - the quality of insight and sympathetic understanding ability - the quality of being able to perform; a quality that permits or facilitates achievement or accomplishment insensitiveness, insensitivity - the inability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment |
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
sensitiveness
noun1. The capacity for or an act of responding to a stimulus:
2. The quality or condition of being emotionally and intuitively sensitive:
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations
حَساسِيَه
citlivost
følsomhed
næmi, viîkvæmni
sensitive
(ˈsensitiv) adjective1. (usually with to) strongly or easily affected (by something). sensitive skin; sensitive to light.
2. (usually with about or to) easily hurt or offended. She is very sensitive to criticism.
3. having or showing artistic good taste. a sensitive writer; a sensitive performance.
ˈsensitively adverbˈsensitiveness noun
ˌsensiˈtivity noun
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.