sensibilitysensibility

The story

From Late Middle English sensibilite (‘physical ability to sense or perceive; sensitivity to pain; type of perception by a sense organ; perception, understanding; image imprinted on the mind during perception; (philosophy) capacity of the soul to receive information from the senses, perceptibility; (in the plural) the senses’), from Middle French sensibilité and Old French sensibilité (‘characteristic or state of being capable of sensation’) (modern French sensibilité), and from their etymon Late Latin sēnsibilitās (‘intelligence; perception, sensation; sensitiveness; meaning or sense of words’), from Latin sēnsibilis (‘detectable; perceptible, sensible’) (from sentiō (‘to perceive with the senses, feel, sense; to be aware or sensible of; etc.’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sent- (‘to perceive; to think’)) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives denoting a capacity or worth of being acted upon)) + -tās (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting states of being). Sense 6 (‘in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant: emotion or feeling as opposed to the will’) is a use of the word as a calque of German Sinnlichkeit (‘receptivity and devotion to what is experienced by the senses; desire for or openness to eroticism, sensuality’).