acceptable

Worthy, decent, sure of being accepted or received with at least moderate pleasure.

Adjective

  1. Worthy, decent, sure of being accepted or received with at least moderate pleasure.
    • We need to find an acceptable present for Jeff.
    • I think if post commanders of the unchaplained posts could employ acceptable clergymen […] then the needs might be met. - 1883, United States. War Department, Annual Reports of the War Department, volume 1, page 128:
    • A site that carried [sexually explicit] material, but that gated it off from children through credit cards or other mechanisms to verify the age of the user, would have an acceptable defense under the act. - 1999...

    Synonyms: acceptable agreeable all right amazing as fine as Dick's hatband awesome beatific bene blissful bodacious bona brilliant celestial commendable cool dandy as candy decent delightful divine enjoyable excellent exceptional fabulous fantastic

    Antonyms: inacceptable rejectable unacceptable

  2. Barely worthy, less than excellent; passable.
    • The designs were acceptable, but they were nothing special either.

    Synonyms: acceptable adequate all right average close enough close enough for government work close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades decent favoursome fair fine jake good enough good enough for government work hunky dory kosher mustn't grumble nonbad not bad not half bad OK okay okayish passable

    Antonyms: inacceptable unacceptable

Origin

From Middle English acceptable, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French acceptable, from Late Latin acceptābilis (“worthy of acceptance”). Morphologically accept + -able.

Forms

more acceptable most acceptable acceptible

Related

acceptability

Derived

acceptableness acceptably inacceptably nonacceptable

Noun

  1. Someone or something that is acceptable.
    • The whole range of the knowable is divided into two classes, the acceptable and the avoidable. The acceptables are: Śiva, Śakti, Vidyesa, Mantra, Mantreśvara and the Jivas. - 1922, Madhusūdan Kaul, “Introduction”, in...
    • The good old acceptables are called “character” actors. An actor of the versatile order is called, casually, even contemptuously, a “character” actor. - c. 1929–1930, Harry Alan Potamkin, “A Diet of Stars”, in Lewis...
    • Close to 3 percent of the acceptables are free of DMF teeth while none of the rejectables have fewer than 7 DMF teeth. - 1941 July 4, Henry Klein, “The Dental Status and Dental Needs of Young Adult Males, Rejectable or...

    Antonyms: rejectable

Forms

acceptables acceptible