sensitiveness

sen·si·tive  (sns-tv)

adj.

1. Capable of perceiving with a sense or senses.

2. Responsive to external conditions or stimulation.

3. Susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others.

4. Quick to take offense; touchy.

5. Easily irritated: sensitive skin.

6. Readily altered by the action of an agent: film that is sensitive to light.

7. Registering very slight differences or changes of condition. Used of an instrument.

8. Fluctuating or tending to fluctuate, as in price: sensitive stocks.

9. Of or relating to classified information: sensitive defense data; holds a sensitive position in the State Department.

n.

1. A sensitive person.

2. One held to be endowed with psychic or occult powers.

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[Middle English, from Old French sensitif, from Medieval Latin snsitvus, from Latin snsus, sense; see sense.]

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sensi·tive·ly adv.

sensi·tive·ness n.

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Sensitiveness 

See Also: KINDNESS

1. Bruise easily like a ripe pear —A. C. Greene
2. Ego … as delicate as tissue paper —Christopher Buckley
3. Exposed as if on a raft —Joseph Conrad
4. Felt like a shell-fish that had lost its shell —Olivia Manning
5. Felt like a vegetable without its skin: raw and vulnerable —Laurie Colwin
6. Felt myself exposed … as sharply as in a photograph —John Updike
7. Gentle as milk —Sylvia Berkman
8. Inherited sensibilities like jewels as red as rubies and blood —Janet Flanner
9. Interpreted the episode as sensitively as an unleashed bull would —Z. Vance Wilson
10. My sensibility begins to screech like chalk upon the blackboard scrawled —Delmore Schwartz
11. A person who is always having her feelings hurt is about as pleasant a companion as a pebble in a shoe —Elbert Hubbard

    A non-gender specific paraphrased from the original which began with “The woman.”

12. Sensitive as a barometer —Thomas Bailey Aldrich
13. Sensitive as a stick of dynamite or a hand grenade —Mike Sommer
14. [An alert horse, with ears turning and twitching to catch all sounds] sensitive as radar —Jilly Cooper
15. Sensitive as the leaves of a silver birch —Joseph Hergesheimer
16. Sensitive as the money market —Thomas Hardy
17. (Taste buds as) sensitive as the skin on a mailman’s feet —Ira Wood
18. Thick-skinned as a brontosaurus —Francis Goldwin, quoted on his sensitiveness to anything but imitations of his company’s toy dinosaurs, Wall Street Journal, June 15, 1987
19. Touchy as a second degree burn —Harry Prince
20. Vulnerable as one of those primitive creatures between two skins or two shells, like a lobster or a crab —David R. Slavitt
21. (You are) vulnerable as the first buds of the maple —Marge Piercy
22. With all her stubbornness and punch, she could be sliced like scrapple —Sharon Sheehe Stark

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	sensitiveness - sensitivity to emotional feelings (of self and others) sensitivity feeling - the experiencing of affective and emotional states; "she had a feeling of euphoria"; "he had terrible feelings of guilt"; "I disliked him and the feeling was mutual" oversensitiveness - sensitivity leading to easy irritation or upset sensibility - refined sensitivity to pleasurable or painful impressions; "cruelty offended his sensibility" feelings - emotional or moral sensitivity (especially in relation to personal principles or dignity); "the remark hurt his feelings"
	2.	sensitiveness - (physiology) responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation; "sensitivity to pain" sensitivity, sensibility sensory faculty, sentiency, sentience, sense, sensation - the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; "in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing" acuteness - a sensitivity that is keen and highly developed; "dogs have a remarkable acuteness of smell" hypersensitivity - extreme sensitivity reactivity, responsiveness - responsive to stimulation exteroception - sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body interoception - sensitivity to stimuli originating inside of the body photosensitivity, radiosensitivity - sensitivity to the action of radiant energy physiology - the branch of the biological sciences dealing with the functioning of organisms
	3.	sensitiveness - the ability to respond to physical stimuli or to register small physical amounts or differences; "a galvanometer of extreme sensitivity"; "the sensitiveness of Mimosa leaves does not depend on a change of growth" sensitivity physical property - any property used to characterize matter and energy and their interactions frequency response - (electronics) a curve representing the output-to-input ratio of a transducer as a function of frequency
	4.	sensitiveness - the ability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment sensitivity antenna, feeler - sensitivity similar to that of a receptor organ; "he had a special antenna for public relations" defensiveness - excessive sensitivity to criticism; "his defensiveness was manifested in hurt silence"; "the fear of being sued for malpractice has magnified physicians' defensiveness" perceptiveness - the quality of insight and sympathetic understanding ability - the quality of being able to perform; a quality that permits or facilitates achievement or accomplishment insensitiveness, insensitivity - the inability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment