sensitize
/ˈsɛnsɪtʌɪz
/(also sensitise)
verb [with object] (often sensitize someone/thing to)
1Cause (someone or something) to respond to certain stimuli; make sensitive: the introductory section aims to sensitize students to the methodology of the course...
- Aimed at sensitising the male psyche to the vulnerability of women to sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, the organisation is working on two phases.
- While the teaching video focuses on children's reactions to transitional changes, this video complements exercises presented in the guide that focus on sensitizing teachers to children's responses to change.
- It aims to sensitise privileged schoolchildren to underprivileged ones.
1.1Make (photographic film) sensitive to light: the kit sensitizes any 35 mm film in hours...
- The plates had to be sensitised just before the photograph was taken, and since this was the era of the wet collodion process and Egypt was very hot, many times Frith's collodion boiled while he was trying to coat his glass plates.
- Black and white photographic emulsions are composed of layers of silver halide crystals, with additional small amounts of various sensitizing agents, suspended in gelatin.
- Photographers then added other sensitizing chemicals and allowed the plate to dry to a tacky consistency before dipping it in a bath of silver nitrate and other ingredients.
1.2Make (an organism) abnormally sensitive to a foreign substance: the workers had been immunologically sensitized to the enzyme...
- Prostaglandins promote the development of hyperalgesia by sensitizing nociceptive neurons.
- In both the short- and long-term protocols, a control group of mice was sensitized to OVA and challenged with saline alone.
- This is quite modest at low work rates - except when the carotid chemoreceptors are sensitized, such as during sojourns at high altitude.
Derivatives
sensitization
/ noun ...- Many experts, including Sharma, feel that one way to address this harsh reality is to begin gender sensitization at an early stage.
- They have to be part and parcel of the program of awareness and sensitization.
- There is room for increased police action within the existing framework, increased responsiveness, greater resources at the command of the police and better sensitisation of the personnel.
sensitizer
- They are loaded with carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, liver and kidney damagers and sensitizers.
- The investigations were performed on selected sensitizers that exhibit short fluorescence decay times
- Exposure to proinflammatory agents such as allergens, occupational sensitizers, and infections has been shown to increase airway responsiveness in subjects with and without asthma, and this may cause asthma in the latter group.