• What is being susceptible?

We explain what it means to be susceptible, various synonyms and their meaning in everyday speech and in specialized contexts.

Susceptible people are prone to complaining, anger, or even violence.

What is being susceptible?

When we speak of susceptibility, that is, of being susceptible, we refer to the condition of being vulnerable, influenceable, affected, that is, of being particularly receptive to elements or actions from outside. Which means that something susceptible is something capable of being modified by third parties.

This word comes from Latin suscipere, voice composed of subs- ("Below") and capere ("take"). It is generally used in technical or scientific fields such as synonymous from "sensitive" or "vulnerable." On the other hand, in the speaks colloquial and popular usually means that a person is easy to offend, or has a personality very reactive, very picky.

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 bother. In general, susceptibility is considered a negative trait, which makes people prone to complaining, anger or even violence. In this way, when someone says that "he does not want to hurt susceptibilities", he means that he has no intention of hurting or annoying those who may be referred to.
• In medical terms, susceptibility translates into a higher degree of vulnerability faced with a certain type of infectious agent or disease, either due to genetic conditions of the individual (innate susceptibility) or to environmental, health or age conditions (acquired susceptibility).
• In physical, we speak of electromagnetic susceptibility to refer to the ability of a physical system to operate without degradation, when it is in the presence of electrical (electrical susceptibility) or magnetic (magnetic susceptibility) disturbances. The higher the susceptibility of this type, the worse the system will perform in the face of the disturbance.
• In economyWe speak of the susceptibility of goods to distinguish between those that can be evaluated monetarily (that is, that have a quantifiable monetary value) and those that cannot. Thus, susceptible assets are those that can be monetized.