supersensitive

[ soo-per-sen-si-tiv ]

adjective

1. extremely or excessively sensitive; hypersensitive:

   a supersensitive smoke detector.

2. Electricity. of or relating to relays that operate on very small currents, below about 250 microamperes.
3. hypersensitive ( def 2 ).

Other Words From

• super·sensi·tive·ness noun
• super·sensi·tivi·ty noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of supersensitive¹

First recorded in 1830–40; super- + sensitive

Example Sentences

Her mother described her as “a very high strung and supersensitive girl who does not seem to understand how to cope with the rebuffs of this crass world.”

From Washington Post

“He loved those sunglasses. He has those beautiful blue eyes, supersensitive to sunlight, so if you saw Noah you knew a pair of shades would be close by,” Matt Shahnavaz said.

From Seattle Times

I wonder what Youngkin and the supersensitive White parents who helped elect him would have thought of the White Mosby teacher who directed another play I was in.

From Washington Post

My senses seemed supersensitive and I was sure I could hear their food going down, their corpuscles moving through their bloodstreams, their alveoli inflating and deflating.

From Washington Post

Researchers are pushing to build a final generation of supersensitive detectors — or one ‘ultimate’ detector — that will leave an elusive dark-matter candidate with no place to hide.

From Nature

Related Words

• conscious
• delicate
• emotional
• hypersensitive
• keen
• nervous
• perceptive
• precise
• receptive
• responsive
• susceptible
• tense
• touchy
• tricky
• unstable