Do you love to play with words? Are you an avid reader of books (fiction and nonfiction)? You may or may not love Jane Austen, but you certainly are highly sensitive. Right? Welcome to this space; it’s made for you. What are some meanings of the words “Sense” and “Sensitivity”?

This Blog has been in the making for quite a while simply because people like us like to think things through. We like to experiment and improvise, yet there is this need to control and know where we are going, this urge to see the big picture – and above all – to know WHY…

Sense and Sensitivity invites you to a journey of exploration, self-(re-)discovery, and treasure hunt. The aim is to provide sound and solid tools with scientific foundations, proven ideas to apply and adjust to your needs, and prompts to play with.

Imagine a garden with several flower beds, a playground, and a library…

Making Sense of Sense

What exactly is the definition of the noun “sense”? People like us – I call them Curious Creatives – like precision and the accurate use of words and language. Let’s examine how it declines into different meanings (= making sense).

As you can see in the visuals below, there are four aspects to consider: physical capacity, feeling, attitude, and meaning.

Digging Deeper into the Sense of Sense

You are a language lover (and probably a polyglot, too). Therefore, you are used to accessing dictionaries and adore to get the nuances of an expression or a word. Part of this inbuilt curiosity is a preference for depth, which leads us to check out the etymology of “sense”:

As you can see above, “sense” initially overcame the now prevalent dichotomy of modern societies separating or opposing emotional and cognitive processes. Food for thought!

Sense and its Synonyms

Looking at the synonyms above allows us to overcome another misconception and false dichotomy: the one that separates the processes of the body and its sense faculties from our feelings and cognitive processes.

Also important are the aspects of discernment and appreciation that may (or may not) lead to applying wisdom and common sense. This is at the heart of Sense and Sensibility and one of its heroines—more about the novel below.

Aspects of Sensitivity

First, the word sensitivity refers to a capacity to detect, record and process external stimuli at the sensory level.

Secondly, sensitivity depicts a capacity to emphatically understand other’s needs or discern a situation or subject that requires delicacy.

While the latter aspects can become superpowers, there are also a few flip sides of the concept of sensitivity: emotional reactivity, being impressionable and influenced, and finally, some inherent delicacy or lack of robustness.

Sensitivity and its Synonyms

The synonyms of sensitivity listed below confirm the complexity and richness of the concept found in the definitions.

Making Sense of Your Sensitivity

After all this “warming up”, we come to two other aspects that this website covers: how high sensitivity and being so-called “gifted and talented” influence your specific and uncommon way of functioning. You will find more information under the various blog categories: Smart Sensitivity, Curious Creatives and in French Sens et Sensibilité.

Sense And Sensitivity and Jane Austen

Curious Creatives have one thing in common: they love language, dictionaries and playing with words. I have been a huge fan of Jane Austen’s novels and style for a long time and been delving deep and wide into her writings during 2024 and 2025. I do love several of the adaptions as well, but even if they heavily use her dialogues and even prose to a great extent, they hardly every manage to convey what the real ‘genius’ of Jane Austen constitutes…

Of course I hoped that some of the people who are still reading this article are also fond of the world of Jane Austen, not necessarily her novel Sense and Sensibility in particular. I’m not sure yet to what extent I want to publish essays about her work here or elsewhere.

If YOU too love her characters, her unique wit and sharp observations around human psychology and behaviour and would love to have some Jane Austen geeking or would like me to write more about her work and how it may help us flourish in the 21st century please don’t hesitate to reach out.