readable

Legible, possible to read or at least decipher.

Adjective

  1. Legible, possible to read or at least decipher.
    • 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. 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...
    • 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...

Origin

Etymology tree English read Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlis Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin -ābilis Old French -ablebor. Middle English -able English -able English readable From read + -able.

Forms

more readable readabler most readable readablest

Synonyms

legible

Antonyms

unreadable illegible

Hyponyms

computer-readable human-readable machine-readable

Derived

lawyer-readable nonreadable readability readableness readably