We explain what it means to be susceptible, various synonyms and their meaning in everyday speech and in specialized contexts.
What is it to be susceptible?
When we talk about susceptibility, that is, being susceptible, we are referring to the condition of being vulnerable, influenceable, affectable, that is, being be particularly receptive to elements or actions coming from outside. Which means that something susceptible is something capable of being modified by third parties.
This word comes from Latin suscipevoice composed by subs- (“below”) and capere (“take”, “grasp”). It is generally used in technical or scientific fields as a synonym for “sensitive” or “vulnerable”. On the other hand, in colloquial and popular speech it usually means that a person is easy to offend, or that he or she has a very reactive, very picky personality.
Therefore, the strict meaning of the term will depend on the context in which it is used. To cite some examples:
- A susceptible person is one who is very easy to make uncomfortable.. In general, susceptibility is considered a negative trait, which makes people prone to complaints, anger or even violence. In this way, when someone says that “they do not wish to hurt people's feelings”, they mean that they do not have the intention of hurting or bothering those who may assume they are being referred to.
- In medical terms, susceptibility translates into a greater degree of vulnerability to a certain type of infectious agent or disease, whether due to genetic conditions of the individual (innate susceptibility) or environmental, health or age conditions (acquired susceptibility).
- In physics, we talk about electromagnetic susceptibility to refer to the ability of a physical system to operate without degradationwhen found in the presence of electrical (electrical susceptibility) or magnetic (magnetic susceptibility) disturbances. The greater the susceptibility of this type, the worse the system will perform in the face of the disturbance.
- In economics, we talk about the susceptibility of goods to distinguish between those that can be valued monetarily (that is, that have a quantifiable monetary value) and those that cannot. So, susceptible goods are those that can be monetized.
Continue with: Maturity
References
- “Susceptible” in the language dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Be susceptible. What is it to be susceptible? Dealing with susceptible people” (video) in Protocol and Etiquette (Spain).
- “Susceptibility” in the Scientific Committee of the European Union.
- “Electromagnetic susceptibility” on Wikipedia.
- “Susceptibility” at National Human Genome Research Institute (USA).
