Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Easily influenced or affected.
  • adjective Especially sensitive; highly impressionable.
  • adjective Permitting an action to be performed; capable of undergoing something.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Capable of receiving or admitting, or of being affected; capable of being, in some way, passively affected; capable (of); accessible (to): commonly with of before a state and to before an agency: as, susceptible of pain; susceptible to flattery: but of is sometimes used also in the latter case.
  • Capable of emotional impression; readily impressed; impressible; sensitive.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Capable of admitting anything additional, or any change, affection, or influence; readily acted upon.
  • adjective Capable of impression; having nice sensibility; impressible; tender; sensitive

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective likely to be affected by something
  • adjective easily influenced or tricked; credulous
  • adjective medicine especially sensitive, especially to a stimulus
  • adjective that, when subjected to a specific operation, will yield a specific result
  • noun epidemiology A person who is vulnerable to being infected by a certain disease

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (often followed by `of' or `to') yielding readily to or capable of
  • adjective easily impressed emotionally

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin susceptibilis, from Latin susceptus, past participle of suscipere, to receive : sub-, from below; see sub– + capere, to take; see kap- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin susceptibilis, from Latin susceptus, from suscipere.

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Examples

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  • I found this word in another surfer mag. By John Horne, Living on the islands it was susceptible for young children to surf.

    October 28, 2010