"workable" - Word of the Day from the OED

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workable, a.

SECOND EDITION 1989

(wkb()l)  [f. WORK v. + -ABLE.] 

    1. Of substances or materials: That can be worked, fashioned, or manipulated for use; said also of the state in which they are capable of being worked.

1545 R. ASCHAM Toxoph. (Arb.) 139 As the potter most connyngly doth cast his pottes whan his claye is softe and workable. 1629 JACKSON Creed VI. II. ix. §1 Workable or fashionable unto any set forme. 1709 T. ROBINSON Nat. Hist. Westmld. ix. 55 It is but eight or nine Inches thick, but the Roof and Covers being strong, it is a workable Coal. 1853 Pharmac. Jrnl. XIII. 118 Coal and fireclay, of workable value. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. v. 299 Many heavy clays..might be made friable, and easily workable by a liberal application of lime. 1887 P. M^CNEILL Blawearie 90 The ‘ochre hole’..had been found too wet to be workable.

    2. That can be worked, managed, or conducted, as a contrivance, establishment, institution, etc.

1756 in Naval Chron. (1799) I. 267, I stood off.., to put the ship in a workable state. 1862 SMILES Engineers III. 367 Often making a circuit to secure good, workable gradients. 1859 W. CHADWICK Life De Foe v. 272 Each of those hands was well furnished with a good workable hedging-bill. 1881 Daily Tel. 29 Nov. 5 The only workable boat of the Lord Hood was manned. 1881 M. E. BRADDON Asph. xii, There's not one of 'em knows how to plan a good workable hot-house. 1901 Daily News 28 Feb. 9/1 To realise how much had been done to make the hospital a really workable place.

    b. of a plan, system, scheme, or the like.

1865 MILL Repr. Govt. (ed. 3) 63/1 Assuming the plan to be workable. 1878 BAYNE Purit. Rev. xi. 445 A permanently workable, broadly comprehensive ecclesiastical scheme.

    3. Capable of working. rare.

1851 MAYHEW Lond. Labour II. 358 Very nearly seven millions of wives and children of a workable age still unoccupied.

    Hence workableness, workability.

1793 SMEATON Edystone L. Contents p. viii, Tried the workableness of the Rock. 1874 MORLEY Compromise i. 2 The immediate and universal workableness of a policy.

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