What does "hypersensitive" mean?

Highly or abnormally sensitive to some substances or agents, especially to some allergen.

What is a synonym for "hypersensitive"?

Common synonyms include: allergic, allergic, anaphylactic, delicate, empathetic, empathic.

adj

adj ·5 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Adjective

1
Highly or abnormally sensitive to some substances or agents, especially to some allergen.
2
Excessively sensitive; easily offended.

Adjective

1
having an allergy or peculiar or excessive susceptibility (especially to a specific factor) wordnet

"A dog's sense of hearing is hypersensitive."

From hyper- + sensitive. Doublet of supersensitive.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.