Word Study
sensitivity
CIDE DICTIONARY
sensitivity, n.
The quality or state of being sensitive; -- used chiefly in science and the arts; as, the sensitivity of iodized silver. [1913 Webster]
"Sensitivity and emotivity have also been used as the scientific term for the capacity of feeling." [1913 Webster]
THESAURUS
sensitivity
acuteness, affectivity, agitability, allergy, anaphylaxis, appreciation, appreciation of differences, appreciativeness, artistic judgment, awareness, censoriousness, choosiness, combustibility, compassion, concern, connoisseurship, conscientiousness, consciousness, considerateness, critical niceness, criticalness, delicacy, discriminating taste, discriminatingness, discrimination, discriminativeness, edginess, emotional instability, emotionalism, empathy, eruptiveness, excitability, excitableness, explosiveness, exquisiteness, fastidiousness, feel, feeling, fine palate, fineness, finesse, hyperesthesia, hyperpathia, hypersensitiveness, hypersensitivity, identification, impressionability, inflammability, intuition, irascibility, irritability, judiciousness, kindliness, latent violence, making distinctions, meticulousness, nervousness, niceness of distinction, nicety, oversensibility, oversensitiveness, oversensitivity, overtenderness, palate, particularity, particularness, passibility, perception, perceptiveness, perceptivity, perfectionism, perturbability, photophobia, preciseness, precisianism, precision, prickliness, priggishness, prudishness, punctilio, punctiliousness, purism, puritanism, receptiveness, receptivity, refined discrimination, refined palate, refinement, responsiveness, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, selectiveness, selectivity, sense, sensibility, sensitiveness, sensitivity, sensitization, skittishness, soreness, startlishness, strictness, subtlety, supersensitivity, susceptibility, susceptivity, sympathy, tact, tactfulness, taste, temperamentalness, tempestuousness, tenderness, tetchiness, thin skin, ticklishness, touchiness, understanding, violence, warmthFor further exploring for "sensitivity" in Webster Dictionary Online