Sensible vs Discernible - What's the difference?
sensible | discernible |
Perceptible by the senses.
* Arbuthnot
* 1778 , William Lewis, The New Dispensatory (page 91)
* 1902 , William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience , Folio Society 2008, page 45:
Easily perceived; appreciable.
* Sir W. Temple
* Adam Smith
(archaic) Able to feel or perceive.
* Shakespeare
(archaic) Liable to external impression; easily affected; sensitive.
* Shakespeare
Of or pertaining to the senses; sensory.
(archaic) Cognizant; having the perception of something; aware of something.
* John Locke
* Addison
Acting with or showing good sense; able to make good judgements based on reason.
* 2005 , .
Characterized more by usefulness or practicality than by fashionableness, especially of clothing.
* 1999 , Neil Gaiman, Stardust (2001 Perennial Edition), page 8,
(obsolete) Sensation; sensibility.
* Milton
(obsolete) That which impresses itself on the senses; anything perceptible.
* Krauth-Fleming
(obsolete) That which has sensibility; a sensitive being.
* Burton
Possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the intellect.
:
* 1821 ,
*
*:So this was my future home, I thought!Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
As adjectives the difference between sensible and discernible
is that sensible is perceptible by the senses while discernible is possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the intellect.As a noun sensible
is sensation; sensibility.sensible
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Air is sensible to the touch by its motion.
- The sensible qualities of argentina promise no great virtue of this kind; for to the taste it discovers only a slight roughishness, from whence it may be presumed to be entitled to a place only among the milder corroborants.
- It has been vouchsafed, for example, to very few Christian believers to have had a sensible vision of their Saviour.
- The disgrace was more sensible than the pain.
- The discovery of the mines of America does not seem to have had any very sensible effect upon the prices of things in England.
- Would your cambric were sensible as your finger.
- a sensible thermometer
- with affection wondrous sensible
- He cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it.
- They are now sensible it would have been better to comply than to refuse.
- They ask questions of someone who thinks he's got something sensible to say on some matter when actually he hasn't.
- They would walk, on fair evenings, around the village, and discuss the theory of crop rotation, and the weather, and other such sensible matters.
Usage notes
* "Sensible" describes the reasonable way in which a person may think'' about things or ''do things: *: It wouldn't be sensible to start all over again now. * "Sensitive" describes an emotional way in which a person may react to things: *: He has always been a sensitive child. *: I didn’t realize she was so sensitive about her work.Noun
(en noun)- Our temper changed which must needs remove the sensible of pain.
- Aristotle distinguished sensibles into common and proper.
- This melancholy extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles .
External links
* * * ----discernible
English
Adjective
(en adjective)John Duncan], [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=En58zhD3SWUC Duncan's Travels
- To have demolished and rebuilt the walls, would have been a very costly expedient, and as the least of two evils, the painter's brush was resorted to; here and there however, above some of the windows, the black wreathings of the smoke are still discernible through the white covering.
