readable
adj/ˈɹiː.də.bəl/ · [ˈɹiː.də.bl̩]
Etymology From read + -able.
1
Of handwriting Legible, possible to read or at least decipher.
Print; etc; print; etc
- If that sign were still readable we'd know where we are!
2
Which can be read—i.e. accessed or played—by a certain technical type of device.
- No sale, those aren't readable with my DVD-player!
3
Of a book Enjoyable to read, of an acceptable stylistic quality or at least functionally composed.
- These assembly instructions aren't readable, I still don't have a clue how to start!
- I have been twice at the Museum looking out for Friedrich Books,—that I might examine them a little, and see whether they were worth buying. […] I have got a rather curious new German Book upon Naples and Masaniello (chiefly) whh often made me remember you. To one who knows the streets edifices &c the thing may be readabler: I mean to send it you to Scotsbg the day after tomorrow, along with my Mother’s Magazine.1852 March 3, Thomas Carlyle, “TC to John A[itken] Carlyle”, in Clyde de L[oache] Ryals, Kenneth J[oshua] Fielding, et al., editors, The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Duke-Edinburgh edition, volume 27 (1852), Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, published 1999, →ISBN, page 59:
4 more examples
- Your August Potentiality will not fail to observe that those spiritual adumbrations are not evanescent or fugaceous, a latrocinous cheat, repugnant to common-sense and an insult to the most parvanimous of human intelligences, but tangible entities, altogether stationary, and as visible to every eye as the readablest of printed work.1875, John Brougham, John Elderkin, “Preface”, in John Brougham, John Elderkin, editors, Lotos Leaves. Original Stories, Essays, and Poems, Boston, Mass.: William F[earing] Gill and Company, […], →OCLC, page ix:
- With this brief preamble I can, without being more than usually misunderstood, proceed to my duty of reviewing the readablest and quite the maddest book produced by the war: namely, The Prussian Hath Said in His Heart, by Cecil Chesterton, who says very truly that it is what a man says in his heart that matters, and not what he says in Hyde Park.1915 January 23, G[eorge] Bernard Shaw, “Chestertonism and the War: A Review”, in The New Statesman: A Weekly Review of Politics and Literature, volume IV, number 94, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 386, column 2:
- After his childhood, which is the readablest part of even the worst autobiography, his attempts to escape from his subject are pitiable.1949, George Bernard Shaw, “My Apology for This Book”, in Sixteen Self Sketches, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, →OCLC, page 19:
- So far as cartoons are concerned these days, nothing—not even sewage works—is sacred, and everything is thereby readabler and believabler.1953 February, American Water Works Association, “Percolation and Runoff”, in Journal, volume 45, number 2, Denver, Colo., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 40, columns 1–2:
- Synonyms
- legible
- Antonyms
- unreadable, illegible
- Derived terms
- lawyer-readable, nonreadable, readability, readableness, readably
- Hyponyms
- computer-readable, human-readable, machine-readable