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💖 Understanding feelings 🤲 Feeling physical touch 🔬 Detecting small changes 🦠 Easily harmed 🔐 Need for protection
sensitivity

sensitivity

24 4.1
How well a device or test notices small changes
  • noun
  • /ˌsɛnsɪˈtɪvɪti/
  • Specialized
: sensibilidad
  • Her sensitivity to light made her wear sunglasses even on cloudy days.
  • sensitivity and specificity
  • sensitivity for detection
  • high sensitivity

You grow older, your taste buds change, your sensitivities change.

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Examples

  • Also, the CBM measures may lack sensitivity to student growth on whole number concepts and skills.

    Academic text (2015)

  • Measurement systems for modeling growth also must demonstrate sensitivity or responsiveness to individual change.

    Academic text (1999)

  • What it measures is how the sensitivity itself changes.

  • However, some of the sensitivity is low today.

  • I want the sensitivity set on ten.

    The Kid (2000)

  • The row shows the sensitivity of a sensor.

  • Or set the sensitivity high and actually scan and find the live wire inside the wall.

  • Thus, the small differences in hearing sensitivity were completely governed by age.

    Academic text (2012)

  • I mentioned this in brief earlier, but developing a higher sensitivity and ability to perceive this can be helpful.

  • And it measured the cosmic microwave background with extreme sensitivity and resolution.

Synonyms

sensibility
vssensitivity
2 6.6

Ability to feel physical things like touch or pain

focuses more on detecting and registering small differences in stimuli
acuteness
vssensitivity
1 6.5

A very strong ability to notice things by sight, hearing, or smell

is the general ability to detect or register small changes in intensity
sensitiveness
vssensitivity
1 6.8

Ability to feel or notice very small physical changes

is similar but covers small differences in amount or intensity generally
discriminability
vssensitivity
1 8.8

The ability to notice differences between things

focuses on sensing physical stimuli and small intensity changes rather than category differences
hyperacuity
vssensitivity
  • Specialized
1 9.9

A skill that lets you notice very small differences in what you see or hear better than most people

applies to ordinary detection of small differences within normal perception range

How Sensitive

sensitivity
  • Specialized
24 4.1

Surface Forms

sensitivity singular
sensitivities plural

Morphology

sensitivity = sensitive (transparent) = sensitive + ity

Derived from 'sensitive' + '-ity'; denotes the degree or capacity for detection, which follows directly from the adjective.

Etymology

Sensitivity comes from the root sens-, from the Latin sentire meaning 'to feel'. Like a sensor that 'feels' tiny changes, a sensitive instrument can detect very small differences, so sensitivity means how little change it can notice.