subjectivity

noun

sub·​jec·​tiv·​i·​ty (ˌ)səb-ˌjek-ˈti-və-tē 

: the quality, state, or nature of being subjective

Any attempt to link landscapes and music together can suffer from some measure of subjectivity.

—David J. Keeling

He thinks that scientists and philosophers have unjustly neglected the subjectivity of conscious experience and that this has made it harder for them to explain some of the workings of the mind.

—Anthony Gottlieb

Examples of subjectivity in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Deports 2-Year-old US Citizen: What to Know Critics warned that the scope and subjectivity of this surveillance could chill free speech. —Tom Rogers, MSNBC Newsweek, 29 Apr. 2025

This comes from certain ideas in psychoanalysis, specifically from Lacanian psychoanalysis (one of whose core ideas is that subjectivity is constructed through language and meaning is never fully fixed). —Georg Szalai, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Feb. 2025

In other words, they can be used to shift costs from data centers to consumers because of the subjectivity and complexity in those contracts’ accounting practices, the report stated. —Neha Hegde, CNBC, 16 Apr. 2025

That introduces some human bias, but also some opportunity, because every projection system makes its own choices about what goes into the meat grinder, and so there’s a little subjectivity in every effort anyway. —Eno Sarris, The Athletic, 12 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1803, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for subjectivity

• absorptivity
• affectivity
• collectivity
• conductivity
• connectivity
• corrosivity
• creativity
• diffusivity
• directivity
• effectivity
• emissivity
• exclusivity

Medical Definition

subjectivity

noun

sub·​jec·​tiv·​i·​ty ˌsəb-jek-ˈtiv-ət-ē 

plural subjectivities

1

: subjective character, quality, state, or nature

2

: the personal qualities of an investigator that affect the outcome of scientific or medical research (as by unconsciously communicating a bias to the subject of the experiment)