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/ˈeɪbəl/ Listen

adjective

Able adj. (compar. abler; superl. ablest)

Fit; adapted; suitable. (Obs.) "A many man, to ben an abbot 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.

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."

(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.""

Synonyms: Competent; qualified; fitted; efficient; effective; capable; skillful; clever; vigorous; powerful.

verb

Able v. t. (Obs.)

To make able; to enable; to strengthen.

To vouch for. "I 'll able them."

suffix

-able suff. 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."

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Etymology of 'Able'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Able" Quotes from Famous Books

... restrictions which hedge round a Foreign Minister, and in their anxiety to get speakers they will look anywhere. On one occasion I received an invitation to go to Canada to attend a banquet at a Commercial Club in one of the principal Canadian cities. It would have given me great pleasure to be able to comply with this request, as I had not then visited that country, but, contrary to inclination, I had to decline. I was accredited as Minister to Washington, and did not feel at liberty to visit another country without the special permission ...

— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... and he fell silent. I knew that, besides his thoughts of his lady, came other thoughts of his father. He sat gravely silent. But of last night's bitter distress he showed no trace. Last night he had not been able to take his eyes from the miserable past; but to-day he saw the future. A future not altogether flowery, perhaps, but one which, however it turned out, should not repeat the old mistakes ...

— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... with the Hunts and Horace Smith, going to the opera of Figaro, music, &c. But now they had found their Marlow retreat—a house with a garden as Mary desired, not with a river view, but a shady little orchard, a kitchen garden, yews, cypresses, and a cedar tree. Here Mary was able to live unsaddened for a time; the Swiss nurse for the children, a cook and man-servant, sufficed for in-door and out-door work, and Mary, true to her name, was able to occupy herself with spiritual ...

— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... anyone who gains wealth without effort is no better than a parasite, I was contracting for new plants in Bohemia, Poland, Northern Italy and France. I did not neglect buying heavily into the Briey Basin and into the Swedish oremines to ensure the future supply of these mills. In spite of the able assistance of Stuart Thario and the excellent spadework of Preblesham, I was so busy at this time—for in addition to everything else the sale of concentrates diagrammed an everascending spiral—that food and sleep seemed to be only irritating curtailments ...

— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... to heed her words, "men are really elected before the convention. The work must be done now. You two can, of course, do a lot of things that it wouldn't be good form for a regular clergyman to do. Of course you wouldn't be able to manage the directing, but there is a good deal of work that ...

— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

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