Sensible vs Silly - What's the difference?
sensible | silly |
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
(label) Pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , I.vi:
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
(label) Simple, unsophisticated, ordinary; rustic, ignorant.
* 1633 , (John Donne), "Sapho to Philænis":
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
* (John Milton) (1608-1674)
Foolish, showing a lack of good sense and wisdom; frivolous, trifling.
Irresponsible, showing irresponsible behaviors.
Semiconscious, witless.
(label) Of a fielding position, very close to the batsman; closer than short.
Simple, not intelligent, unrefined.
* {{quote-book, year=1935, author=
, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=1
, passage=“Anthea hasn't a notion in her head but to vamp a lot of silly mugwumps. She's set her heart on that tennis bloke
(label) Happy; fortunate; blessed.
(label) Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* Robynson (More's Utopia)
(colloquial) A silly person; a fool.
(colloquial) A mistake.
In archaic terms the difference between sensible and silly
is that sensible is cognizant; having the perception of something; aware of something while silly is pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.In obsolete terms the difference between sensible and silly
is that sensible is that which has sensibility; a sensitive being while silly is harmless; innocent; inoffensive.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
* * * ----silly
English
Adjective
(er)- A silly man, in simple weedes forworne, / And soild with dust of the long dried way; / His sandales were with toilesome trauell torne, / And face all tand with scorching sunny ray
- After long storms with which my silly bark was tossed sore.
- The silly buckets on the deck.
- For, if we justly call each silly man'' / A ''little island , What shall we call thee than?
- A fourth man, in a silly habit.
- All that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
George Goodchild
- (Chaucer)
- The silly virgin strove him to withstand.
- A silly , innocent hare murdered of a dog.