[f. next: see -ITY. Cf. med.L. susceptibilitas (Abelard), F. susceptibilité (from 18th c.).] The quality or condition of being susceptible; capability of receiving, being affected by, or undergoing something.
1. Const. of (now rare) or to.
a. Capability of undergoing a specified action or process.
The action is mostly, now always, denoted by a noun (occas. by a passive infinitive), which is usually equivalent to a passive gerund: e.g., susceptibility of application = capability of being applied; s. to reflection = capability of being reflected.
1644. Bp. Maxwell, Prerog. Chr. Kings, viii. 91. Potestas passiva regiminis, a capacity or susceptibility to be governed.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., I. x. 399. In proportion to its susceptibility of liquifaction in a low degree of temperature.
1823. Coleridge, Table-t., 3 Jan. A visible substance without susceptibility of impact, I maintain to be an absurdity.
1850. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. iii. (1872), 35. Its susceptibility of application to the purpose.
1891. Meredith, One of our Conq., xxviii. A certain face close on handsome, had a fatal susceptibility to caricature.
b. Capability of being, or disposition to be, affected by something; sensibility or sensitiveness to something specified: (a) external influences, impressions, etc.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. (1677), 35. The susceptibility of those influences, and the effects thereof.
1833. I. Taylor, Fanat., i. 20. The susceptibility to the opinions of those around us.
1855. J. H. Newman, Callista (1890), 328. A sense of relations and aims, and a susceptibility of arguments, to which before she was an utter stranger.
a. 1862. Buckle, Civiliz. (1864), II. vi. 570. Sympathy, being a susceptibility to impression, is also a principle of action.
(b) feelings or emotions.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 112, ¶ 2. The same laxity of regimen is equally necessary to intellectual health, and to a perpetual susceptibility of occasional pleasure.
1755. Young, Centaur, iv. Wks. 1757, IV. 209. A tenderness of heart, and a susceptibility of awe, with regard to God.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. i. Susceptibility of pleasure and pain.
(c) physical agents or agencies, disease, etc.
1803. Beddoes, Hygëia, IX. 171. When young persons … begin to have too great susceptibility of cold.
1820. Faraday, Exp. Res., xvi. (1859), 66. The difference between these two alloys as to susceptibility to oxygen.
1882. Med. Temp. Jrnl., L. 67. My studies have pointed to childhood as a period of extreme susceptibility to this disorder.
1899. Science-Gossip, XXVI. 218/2. The period of maximum susceptibility of the larva to the colour.
2. Without const.
a. Capacity for feeling or emotion; disposition or tendency to be emotionally affected; sensibility.
1753. Richardson, Grandison, V. xxi. 123. Yet was her susceptibility her only inducement; for the man was neither handsome … nor genteel.
1805. James, Milit. Dict. (ed. 2), s.v. Susceptible, Men of extreme susceptibility are not calculated for command.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., i. I. 66. The susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
1879. McCarthy, Own Times, II. xx. 78. There was something about the time and manner of the papal bull calculated to offend the susceptibility of a great and independent nation.
(b) pl. Capacities of emotion, esp. such as may be hurt or offended; sensitive feelings; sensibilities.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. i. I. 39. The women, whose religious susceptibilities were often found extremely unmanageable.
1871. Macduff, Mem. Patmos, i. 6. It was the ‘another King, one Jesus’ which had roused the susceptibilities—kindled the jealous fury—of the minions of Cæsar.
1884. Gladstone, in Daily News, 23 Oct., 5/7. I have not knowingly wounded the susceptibilities or assailed the opinions of any one who may read them.
1896. Daily Graphic, 10 Feb., 7/1. Nobody wants to offend French susceptibilities by the suggestion that our neighbours have jockeyed us in Siam.
b. Capacity for receiving mental or moral impressions.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., Moral & Lit., ii. I. 7. Furnished with a natural susceptibility, and free from any acquired impediment, the mind is then [sc. in youth] in the most favourable state for the admission of instruction.
1852. H. Rogers, Ecl. Faith, 298. The same ‘susceptibilities’ and ‘potentialities’ are in each human mind.
c. Capability of being, or disposition to be, physically affected (as a living body, or an inanimate thing); spec. the capacity of a substance (e.g., iron) for being magnetized, measured by the ratio of the magnetization to the magnetizing force.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 283. Different animals are susceptible of galvanism in very different degrees. In cold-blooded animals, this susceptibility sometimes continues for several days after death.
1817. J. Scott, Paris Revisit. (ed. 4), 287. An inhabitant of these islands, who has constitutional susceptibilities that are unpleasantly affected by a humid … atmosphere.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XV. 267/1. The earlier experimenters arrived for the most part at the conclusion that the susceptibility κ of weakly magnetic bodies is constant.
1903. Lancet, 4 April, 945/2. Susceptibility is very nearly allied to predisposition; it may perhaps be defined as acquired predisposition.
