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Having sense of feeling; possessing or exhibiting the capacity of receiving impressions from external objects; as, a sensitive soul.

ized silver. Sensitivity and emotivity have also been used as the scientific term for the capacity of feeling. Hickok.

failure, especially by failure to provide for one's own support, through negligence or incapacity; hence, lazy; improvident; thriftless; as, a shiftless fellow; shiftless management. -- Shift"less*ly, adv. -- Shift"less*ness, n.

An instrument for testing the hearing capacity.

the specific heat of mercury is 0.033, that of water being 1.000. -- Specific inductive capacity (Physics), the effect of a dielectric body in producing static electric induction as compared with that of some other body or bodies referred to as a standard. -- Specific legacy (Law), a bequest of a particular thing, a…

An instrument for measuring the vital capacity of the lungs, or the volume of air which can be expelled from the chest after the deepest possible inspiration. Cf. Pneumatometer.

The act or process of measuring the chest capacity by means of a spirometer.

A wet meter used to determine the breathing capacity of the lungs.

An instrument for measuring the solid contents of a body, or the capacity of a vessel; a volumenometer.

The quality or state of being strong; ability to do or to bear; capacity for exertion or endurance, whether physical, intellectual, or moral; force; vigor; power; as, strength of body or of the arm; strength of mind, of memory, or of judgment. All his [Samson's] strength in his hairs were. Chaucer. Thou must outlive Th…

To be subservient or subordinate; to serve in an inferior capacity. Not made to rule, But to subserve where wisdom bears command. Milton.

Fitted or disposed to subserve; useful in an inferior capacity; serving to promote some end; subordinate; hence, servile, truckling. Scarce ever reading anything which he did not make subservient in one kind or other. Bp. Fell. These ranks of creatures are subservient one to another. Ray. Their temporal ambition was wh…

; assisting; auxiliary; helping; tributary; especially, aiding in an inferior position or capacity; as, a subsidiary stream. Chief ruler and principal head everywhere, not suffragant and subsidiary. Florio. They constituted a useful subsidiary testimony of another state of existence. Coleridge.

a will to take a devise or legacy, either on failure of a former devisee or legatee by incapacity or unwillingness to accept, or after him. Burrill.

Qualification for any purpose; ability; capacity. A substitute or most allowed sufficiency. Shak. I am not so confident of my own sufficiency as not willingly to admit the counsel of others. Eikon Basilike.

Specifically, capacity for deep feeling or emotional excitement; sensibility, in its broadest acceptation; impressibility; sensitiveness. Magnetic susceptibility (Physics), the intensity of magnetization of a body placed in a uniform megnetic field of unit strength. Sir W. Thomson.

Capacity for receiving; susceptibility. [R.] Wollaston.

Capacity for swallowing; voracity. There being nothing too gross for the swallow of political rancor. Prof. Wilson.

Capacity of a turning lathe, as determined by the diameter of the largest object that can be turned in it.

Having the capacity of bearing several successive crops of fruit without perishing; as, sychnocarpous plants.