Word Direct Answers

What does "able" mean?

Able: Having sufficient power, strength, force, skill, means, or resources of any kind to accomplish the object; possessed of qualifications rendering competent for some end; competent; qualified; capable; as, an able workman, soldier, seaman, a man able to work; a mind able to reason; a person able to be generous; able to endure pain; able to play on a piano.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Specially: Having intellectual qualifications, or strong mental powers; showing ability or skill; talented; clever; powerful; as, the ablest man in the senate; an able speech. No man wrote abler state papers. Macaulay.
  2. 3.(Law) Legally qualified; possessed of legal competence; as, able to inherit or devise property. Note: Able for, is Scotticism. "Hardly able for such a march." Robertson.
  3. 4.To make able; to enable; to strengthen. Chaucer.
  4. 5.To vouch for. "I 'll able them." Shak.
  5. 6.An adjective suffix now usually in a passive sense; able to be; fit to be; expressing capacity or worthiness in a passive sense; as, movable, able to be moved; amendable, able to be amended; blamable, fit to be blamed; salable. Note: The form ible is used in the same sense. Note: It is difficult to say when we are not to use -able instead of -ible. "Yet a rule may be laid down as to when we are to use it. To all verbs, then, from the Anglo-Saxon, to all based on the uncorrupted infinitival stems of Latin verbs of the first conjugation, and to all substantives, whencesoever sprung, we annex - able only." Fitzed. Hall.

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