sensibility
noun
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The meanings of sensibility run the gamut from mere sensation to excessive sentimentality, but we’re here to help you make sense of it all. In between is a capacity for delicate appreciation, a sense often pluralized. In Jane Austen’s books, sensibility is mostly an admirable quality she attributes to, or finds lacking in, her characters: “He had ... a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely” (of Mr. Elliot in Persuasion). In Sense and Sensibility, however, Austen starts out by ascribing to Marianne sensibleness, on the one hand, but an “excess of sensibility” on the other: “Her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation ... she was everything but prudent.”
Examples of sensibility in a Sentence
Jennifer Weil, Footwear News, 16 Feb. 2026
Arthouse sensibility meets genre beats.
—Callum McLennan, Variety, 14 Feb. 2026
His first albums under his own name, 1995’s Earth & Nightfall and 1996’s cult classic Ten Days of Blue, were blissful-sounding ambient techno records that took the melodic sensibilities of the local scene to their cosmic extremes.
—Alex Robert Ross, Pitchfork, 13 Feb. 2026
Dodani will play Vik, a coder with a comic sensibility who seeks out Michael and Olivia for representation in a last-ditch effort when his own tech-employer turns against him.
—Rosy Cordero, Deadline, 13 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for sensibility
Cite this Entry
“Sensibility.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensibility. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.
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sensibility
noun
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sensibility
noun
