Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SENS-I-BIL'I-TY, n. [Fr. sensibilité; from sensible.]

1. Susceptibility of impressions upon the organs of sense; the capacity of feeling or perceiving-the impressions of external objects; applied to animal bodies; as when we say, a frozen limb has lost its sensibility.
2. Acuteness of sensation; applied to the body.
3. Capacity or acuteness of perception; that quality which renders us susceptible of impressions; delicacy of feeling; as, sensibility to pleasure or pain; sensibility to shame or praise; exquisite sensibility.
4. Actual feeling. This adds greatly to my sensibility. – Burke. [This word is often used in this manner for sensation.]
5. It is sometimes used in the plural. His sensibilities seem rather to have been those of patriotism than of wounded pride. – Marshall. Sensibilities unfriendly to happiness may be acquired. – Encyc.
6. Nice perception, so to speak, of a balance; that quality of a balance which renders it movable with the smallest weight, or the quality or state of any instrument that renders it easily affected; as, the sensibility of a balance or of a thermometer. – Lavoisier.