susceptibility

Etymology

The OED and the Shorter Oxford take it as formed from English susceptible + -ity,^[2][3] comparing Medieval Latin susceptibilitās, used by Abelard, and French susceptibilité, recorded from the 18th century.^[2] Etymonline allows either that or a borrowing of the Medieval Latin word,^[4] which Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and Klein give as the source.^[5][6][7] The adjective, recorded from about 1600, is from Late Latin susceptibilis (“capable, sustainable, susceptible”), used by Boethius and Thomas Aquinas,^[4][2] from suscept-, the past participle stem of suscipiō (“to take up, receive, admit, undergo”),^[4] from sub- (“up from under”) and capiō (“to take”), from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The capability of undergoing a specified action or process: 1644, in John Maxwell's Sacro-sancta Regum Majestas.^[2] Merriam-Webster's Unabridged gives the same year,^[5] and Dictionary.com 1635–45.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the general sense of being open to some action, the word moved to being open to influences: Matthew Hale, before 1676, wrote of "the susceptibility of those influences", the passage Johnson quoted in 1755 to define it as the "quality of admitting; tendency to admit".^[2][8] In the 1750s it was applied to the feelings: Johnson used it of the emotions in the Rambler (1751), and Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison (1753) has both the capacity for emotion and the plural susceptibilities, sensitive feelings that can be hurt.^[2][4] The capacity to receive moral or mental impressions followed in 1782,^[2] liability to disease and other physical agents in 1803,^[2] and the physical capacity of a living body or a substance, such as iron, to be affected in 1815,^[2] the starting point of the electric and magnetic susceptibility of physics.^[9]

Timeline

• 1644 – the capability of undergoing a specified action or process.^[2][5]
• before 1676 – openness to external influences or impressions.^[2][8]
• 1751 – sensitiveness to feelings or emotions.^[2]
• 1753 – capacity for emotion; plural, sensitive feelings, sensibilities.^[2][4]
• 1782 – capacity for receiving mental or moral impressions.^[2]
• 1803 – liability to be affected by disease or other physical agents.^[2]
• 1815 – the capacity of a body or substance to be physically affected.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality or state of being susceptible; the capacity to be affected or influenced by something: the susceptibility of old pipes to frost.^[9][5][2]
2. A tendency to catch a disease or react to a pathogen or drug; predisposition.^[5][2]
3. The capacity to be moved by feelings; sensitivity.^[9][2]
4. susceptibilities (plural): feelings that are easily hurt or offended; sensibilities.^[9][2][3]
5. In physics, the amount by which the relative permittivity of a dielectric (electric susceptibility) or the relative permeability of a magnetic medium (magnetic susceptibility) differs from one.^[9]

Word family

• nonsusceptibility
• unsusceptibility
• magnetic susceptibility

Related words

• susceptible
• susceptive
• capable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins