susceptible

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin susceptibilis (“capable, sustainable, susceptible”),^[2][3][4][5] which the OED calls medieval Latin and finds in Boethius and Thomas Aquinas;^[6] Barnhart and Skeat also see the influence of French susceptible.^[2][7] The Latin adjective is formed from susceptus, the past participle of suscipiō (“to take up, receive, sustain”),^[4][2][8] from sub- (“up from under”) and capiō (“to take”),^[3][4][9] with the suffix -ibilis, English -ible.^[10][2] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp”).^[3] Word Origins counts it among the English words from the same Latin verb, with capable, accept, captive, receive and perceive.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Capable of undergoing or admitting some action or process, with of: 1605, in Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning.^[6][2][10] Etymonline dates it to about 1600,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1595–1605.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The early uses all take of: capable of undergoing something (1605), of taking a form or quality (before 1639), and of conceiving a feeling (1646).^[6] Barnhart dates the sense "easily influenced by feelings" to 1646.^[2] From 1702 the word was used of being open to outside influences, especially harmful ones, and the construction with to gradually replaced of in this sense.^[6] Used without a following phrase, it meant "impressionable, easily moved" from 1709, in Prior,^[6][3] and "liable to infection" from 1874.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave only "capable of admitting", and noted Prior's stress on the first syllable as improper.^[13] Medicine has used it as a noun, for a person who is not immune to a disease, since 1923.^[6][10] The older word susceptive had the same sense from the early 15th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 1605 – capable of undergoing an action or process, in Bacon.^[6][2]
• before 1639 – capable of taking a form or attribute.^[6]
• 1646 – capable of feeling a thought or emotion.^[6][2]
• 1702 – open to outside impressions or influences.^[6]
• 1709 – impressionable, easily moved, in Prior.^[6][3]
• 1793 – liable to a disease.^[6]
• 1923 – noun, a person not immune to a disease.^[6][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Easily affected or harmed by something; liable to it: Young seedlings are susceptible to frost.^[14][10][6]
2. Easily moved by feelings; impressionable.^[14][10][6]
3. Capable of undergoing or allowing something, followed by of or to: a statement susceptible of two readings.^[14][10][6]

Noun

1. (medicine) A person or animal that can catch a disease because it is not immune.^[10][6]

Word family

• susceptibleness
• susceptibly
• hypersusceptible
• insusceptible
• nonsusceptible
• oversusceptible
• unsusceptible
• susceptibility

Related words

• susception
• susceptive
• capable
• accept
• receive
• perceive

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins