sensitivenessn.

1651 J. F. tr. H. C. Agrippa Three Bks. Occult Philos. iii. xliii. 495 Sometimes it [sc. the soul] descendeth into sensitiveness [L. idolum] and is affected by the influences of the heavenly bodies, and qualities of naturall things, and is distracted by the passions and the encountring of sensible objects.

1776 N. D. Falck Treat. Med. Qualities Mercury iii. 201 We shall not inquire here, whether the sensitiveness of the stomach, and the immediate correspondence of that viscus with the whole nervous system, is from an innate design in the animal structure ordained to receive the first sympathetic sensation.

1828 J. Ballantyne Exam. Human Mind 427 In regard to sensitiveness many of the lower animals surpass man.

1846 J. C. Calhoun Speech 16 Mar. in Papers (1995) XXII. 723 Magic wires are stretching themselves in all directions over the earth, and when their mystic meshes shall have been united and perfected, our globe itself will become endowed with sensitiveness.

a1933 J. A. Thomson Biol. for Everyman (1934) II. 1377 Their eyes can make much of dim light; and they have acute tactile sensitiveness in their whisker hairs (or vibrissae) and in their feet.

2013 MailOnline (Nexis) 30 Apr. By the time he was in his mid-forties..the alcohol and tobacco had taken their toll. ‘My skin, from my feet up to my waist, and on my arms and hands, had lost nearly all sensitiveness,’ he stated.

1825 Brit. Critic Jan. 41 Many other facts, such as the sensitiveness of some plants, &c. bear an equally close resemblance to the power of muscular irritability.

1862 C. Darwin On Var. Contrivances Orchids Fertilised vi. 212 She [sc. Nature] has endowed these plants with, what must be called for want of a better term, sensitiveness.

1902 Bot. Gaz. 33 360 The rheotropic sensitiveness of the very apex of the root has been demonstrated.

1944 Illustr. London News 28 Oct. 502/1 Their [sc. so-called carnivorous plants] leaves have hairs, which in their movements possess a high degree of sensitiveness, and which lent plausibility to the idea that here was a nervous system.

2004 H. P. Loewer Jefferson's Garden 141 The generic name is from the Latin mimos, for mimic, as the leaves in many species resemble animals with their sensitiveness.

1788 Acct. Life Author in T. Leland Serm. Var. Subj. I. p. xxxiv A sensitiveness in morals and decorum bordering on excess.

1840 R. Browning Sordello vi, in Wks. (1863) III. 435 Untasked of any love, His sensitiveness idled.

1875 J. R. Jefferies Restless Human Hearts I. i. 13 The delicate sensitiveness of his inner being was continually irritated.

1908 Athenæum 21 Nov. 637/3 The analysis of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony..shows vivid sensitiveness to musical impressions.

1950 G. C. Bellamy M. Twain as Literary Artist iii. 41 There was a deep sensitiveness to beauty in him, but he would not always let his responses have full sway.

2009 South Atlantic Rev. 74 154 What she particularly admired in the work of another artist..struck corresponding chords in her own creative sensitiveness.

1817 Morning Chron. 15 Nov. Dr. Thornton's extreme sensitiveness causes him to accuse us of having made a rude and personal attack upon his professional character.

1841 J. S. Buckingham America I. xxv. 421 Extreme sensitiveness to English censure.

1916 C. E. Long tr. C. G. Jung Coll. Papers Analyt. Psychol. viii. 233 There are neurotics who have shown their increased sensitiveness..in the very first weeks of life.

1950 Jrnl. Southern Hist. 16 237 Moran's..sensitiveness and his downright enviousness of those who had attained social success and recognition.

2008 M. A. Irimia in S. Schmid & M. Rossington Reception P. B. Shelley in Europe viii. 127 Shelley's sensitiveness to criticism..places him at the other extreme from the living myth that Byron was.

1867 N. Amer. Rev. July 245 Johnson had not that fine sensitiveness to the political atmosphere which made Burke presageful of coming tempest.

1886 Manch. Examiner 14 Jan. 5/3 The new French Agent at Cairo..seems to be gifted with great diplomatic sensitiveness.

1910 J. H. Jowett School of Calvary iv. 75 Our very birthright includes a sensitiveness to another's woes.

1948 S. C. Chew 19th Cent. & After xxxviii, in A. C. Baugh Lit. Hist. Eng. IV. 1526 A sensitiveness to the subtle relationships existing between small things and great.

2016 Times of India (Nexis) 12 Jan. Such issues can be addressed only if law protectors show sensitiveness towards litigants.

1825 Asiatic Jrnl. & Monthly Reg. Aug. 156 The presence of water seems to terrify even inanimate things; the sensitiveness of mercury to it is clearly exemplified by the barometer.

1857 E. L. Birkett Bird's Urinary Deposits (ed. 5) 387 Such is the sensitiveness of this test that five or six drops only of saccharine urine, diffused through water, is sufficient to show the effect.

1860 J. Tyndall Glaciers of Alps ii. xx. 336 An extreme degree of sensitiveness has been ascribed to the glacier as regards the changes of temperature.

1885 Warren (Pa.) Mirror 31 May The current is supplied by a battery at the burglar alarm company's office, where a galvanometer of great sensitiveness registers the slightest change in its intensity.

1915 Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 27 162 Instruments of surprising sensitiveness, including the thermopile, the bolometer, the radiometer,..and the selenium and photo-electric cell, have brought to knowledge radiations far beyond the range of the eye or the photographic plate.

1944 A. van Hook in J. Alexander Colloid Chem., Theoret. & Appl. V. 517 Bucher..has devised a new method of blood analysis depending on the sensitiveness of Liesegang Ring formation to very slight variations in blood composition and quality.

1998 F. H. Moffitt & J. D. Bossler Surveying (ed. 10) iii. 100 The amount of the error due to the bubble being off center will depend on the sensitiveness of the bubble.

2006 Materials Sci. & Technol. 22 407/1 Safety in transport is not the only area where sensitiveness [of explosives] is an issue.

1834 M. Hall Princ. Diagnosis (ed. 2) 243 With a complexion which is apt to alternate between the pallid and the vivid, there is a degree of sensitiveness to cold.

1848 C. J. Hempel tr. C. Hering in Jahr's New Man. I. 985 Pain in the small of the back, with sensitiveness to pressure.

1904 New Eng. Mag. Feb. 677/2 The true cause [of stock decline] is shown to be the sensitiveness to economic conditions.

1972 J. Kalvoda in A. G. Jhingran et al. Himalayan Geol. II. 302 The sensitiveness of glaciers to the climatic changes.

2015 Stock Watch (Nexis) 5 June Each species lives separately confined to its own mountain tops because of their extreme sensitiveness to temperature.

1839 Athenæum 31 Aug. 644/1 The present degree of sensitiveness of the photogenic paper was stated to be as follows.

1858 Times 27 Apr. 5/4 From six to nine drops of liquor ammoniæ added to each egg seems to increase the sensitiveness of the film.

1885 Sci. Amer. 25 Apr. 262/3 A sensitive plate showing a reading of 25 will be regarded as having an extreme degree of sensitiveness.

1916 Moving Picture World 16 Sept. 1832/1 Isochromatic plates and films are those in which the sensitiveness of the emulsion to yellow light has been increased.

1948 Pop. Photogr. Apr. 28 Both the sensitiveness to light and the development method of the new film differ radically from that of previous types of film.

1989 Van Nostrand's Sci. Encycl. (ed. 7) II. 2204/1 Materials [sc. infrared-sensitive films and plates] sensitive to much longer wavelengths but of lower sensitiveness.