| 释义 |
sensitiveness|ˈsɛnsɪtɪvnɪs|
[-ness.]
1. The power or capacity of sensation. Also, with reference to plants: Capacity of responding to stimulation.
1828Ballantyne Exam. Hum. Mind 427 In regard to sensitiveness many of the lower animals surpass man. 1862Darwin Orchids vi. 212 She [Nature] has endowed these plants with, what must be called for want of a better term, sensitiveness. 1882Vines tr. Sachs' Bot. 775 The sensitiveness of the leaves of Mimosa does not therefore depend on a change of growth caused by the irritation.
transf.1848–9J. C. Calhoun Wks. (1874) IV. 284 Magic wires are stretching themselves in all directions over the earth, and when their mystic meshes shall have been..perfected, our globe itself will become endowed with sensitiveness.
2. Keen susceptibility to outward impressions, delicacy or keenness of feeling developed to an unusual or abnormal degree.
1825Scott Betrothed viii, In slow and solid natures there is usually..a sensitiveness to the breach of petty observances. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt v, But the minister's sensitiveness gave another interpretation to the gaze which he divined rather than saw. 1886Manch. Exam. 14 Jan. 5/3 The new French Agent at Cairo..seems to be gifted with great diplomatic sensitiveness. 1908Athenæum 21 Nov. 637/3 The analysis of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony..shows vivid sensitiveness to musical impressions.
b. Morbid self-consciousness, touchiness.
1851Helps Comp. Solit. x. (1857) 176 At last even sensitive people learn to suffer less from sensitiveness. 1881E. J. Worboise Sissie xv, Sensitiveness, per se, is too often nothing but wounded vanity.
3. The quality or state of being easily affected by or of readily indicating changes of condition; Photogr. susceptibility to actinic influence. See sensitive a. 5, 5 b, 5 c.
1839Fox Talbot in Rep. Brit. Assoc. VIII. ii. 5 The present degree of sensitiveness of the photogenic paper was stated to be as follows. 1857G. Bird's Urin. Depos. (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. 1860Tyndall Glac. ii. xx. 336 An extreme degree of sensitiveness has been ascribed to the glacier as regards the changes of temperature. 1885Sci. Amer. 25 Apr. 262/3 A sensitive plate showing a reading of 25 will be regarded as having an extreme degree of sensitiveness. |