Well also include the variant spelling useable in some of them. I've searched dictionaries and most seem to have "useable" as an alternate spelling of "usable" or simply link to it. refer + al = referralbegin + er = beginner. Even if its not all immediately usable, the Party anticipates better technical ability to exploit the data later on. UK:* /juzb l/ US: /juzbl/ , (yoo z bl) dfinition | Synonymes anglais | en espagnol | Conjugaison [FR] | Conjugator [EN] | en contexte | images WordReference Collins WR Reverse (8) WordReference English-French Dictionary 2022: Un oubli important ? You can't replace the final E from any of those with I or A, because it creates a new vowel combination (oa, oi, ua, ui) that can admit alternate pronunciation. Various corpora look at linguistic data to provide insight into a language. adj. Lets go over some examples of the word usable in context. Why does bunched up aluminum foil become so extremely hard to compress? The toilet is useable for anyone who needs it right away. This shows grade level based on the word's complexity. Does Russia stamp passports of foreign tourists while entering or exiting Russia. Addresses the military's pursuit of 'usable' weaponry that is deliberately crafted to be less powerful, less deadly, and less destructive than the systems it is designed to supplement or replace. We can also look at this graph which shows the British English results. Meaning: capable of being put to use (for a specific purpose): The manufacturing process produces some usable byproducts. It is a word that is always hyphenated because its an adjective were using to modify a noun. useable: 1 adj capable of being put to use Synonyms: usable useful , utile being of use or service adj fit or ready for use or service Synonyms: functional , operable , operational , usable serviceable ready for service or able to give long service adj convenient for use or disposal Synonyms: available , usable disposable free or available for . So, which of the two variations is most common? When do words like "Rewirable" keep the 'e' from "Rewire"? The US version simply lists useable as an acceptable variant of usable, and omits the side note. 2. In the case of useable vs. usable, its best to go with usable because it conforms to the rules and is the most widely used. Luckily, in this case, its very straightforward. 3. What are all the times Gandalf was either late or early? Its widely recognized as the correct form and comes from the Old French word usable of the same spelling. I don't know whether you mean the claim is too broad to be always true, vs. being not generally true. three-quarters of all. You can complete the definition of usable given by the English Definition dictionary with other English dictionaries: Wikipedia, Lexilogos, Oxford, Cambridge, Chambers Harrap, Wordreference, Collins Lexibase dictionaries, Merriam Webster. Usable and useable are synonymous. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. For together these queries pose the following dilemma for the conservative Usable is the most common spelling. But since my first instinct was to write "useable", I'm wondering whether "useable" is perhaps preferred in British/Australian/NZ English while "usable" is more American. Double the last letter for words longer than one syllable that end in a single consonant where stress is on the last syllable when you say them. Much more often spelt as shown than useable, but both spellings are correct. English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. So, what makes them different, and why do we have two spellings for the same word? It has a range of just 150 miles, usable but relatively paltry by 2020 standards. When you switch to the World English version of Oxford Dictionaries Online, their definition of usable has this little "spelling help:". Well also review the rules for adding suffixes to words, particularly -able. Cartoon series about a world-saving agent, who is an Indiana Jones and James Bond mixture, How to add a local CA authority on an air-gapped host of Debian. I created this site to share high-quality research-based content on kids, parenting and navigating the school system. accessible, adaptable, applicable, convenient, expendable, functional, practical, profitable, serviceable, unused, useful, valid, valuable, advantageous, at hand, beneficial, consumable, current, employable, exhaustible How to use usable in a sentence American English uses -able." License This article is distributed under the terms of this license. This seemed immediately intuitive and I thought I'd just made a typo, but at second glance I wasn't so sure. Some words ending in. Learn more about us here. Since they're both the same, they only need one definition. It persists in ageing in some spelling, this time maybe for the "long-vowel" sound. Usable can also be spelled useable, with an e in the middle: both are We outline the most common differences below. correct. Since 1990, the COCA has added 25 million words annually from eight genres spoken, fiction, magazines, newspapers, academic texts, TV and movie subtitles, blogs, and web pages (source). us / ju.z.b l / uk / ju.z.b l / that can be used: The specific software is also usable in other areas of research. His boss, who he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project. There is more than one correct way to spell certain words. There is no mention of useable as a correct form or variant spelling. adjective usable Most material 2005, 1997, 1991 by Penguin Random House LLC. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. It's not like acknowledgeable, acknowledgement, adduceable/adducible, ageing, enforceable, judgement, singeing, traceable, whingeing, where the e may also serve to retain the "soft" c/g sound. I am a career educator and have served at the classroom, administrative, and university levels. How can we display this data in a usable form. Since theyre both the same, they only need one definition. That means we can make use of it while were working with it. You may well have seen both versions of this word in written English and wondered which one is correct. Most dictionaries list useable as a variant spelling. In this article, we will explore both angles and why we might use one variant of the spelling over the other. The "Dropped e" section of Wikipedia in the British and American spelling differences article suggests that "American practice prefers to drop the -e but both British and American English prefer [] usable". Words that don't have a consonant in final syllable (cue, hoe, etc) are a whole nother animal. It seems likely that people across the world more commonly employ usable but that standard usage has resulted in useable becoming accepted as a variant. @Mechanical snail: 'sizable' and 'salable' look like misspellings to. As several posters have pointed out, sometimes it is necessary to keep the E, to retain pronuciation of a consonant, and/or to avoid confusion with a similar word (singing VS. singeing). That means that usable is by far the most popular choice by a margin of about 20 times! In fact, it follows much the same trend as the graph above (since American English has the largest influence on the overall numbers). . Do you know how to answer the questions that cause some of the greatest grammar debates? Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. If you switch between the two, youll often confuse the reader and leave them wondering whether you know how to spell the word or not. Definition of usable adjective in Oxford Advanced American Dictionary. You can complete the definition of useable surface given by the English Definition dictionary with other English dictionaries: Wikipedia, Lexilogos, Oxford, Cambridge, Chambers Harrap, Wordreference, Collins Lexibase dictionaries, Merriam Webster. Usually, it is not. You can buy them both on Amazon. In Germany, does an academic position after PhD have an age limit? Its kept simple because they both write with British English rules (since historically they were part of the British Empire). Etymologists, who study the origin of words and how their meanings evolve, date the earliest usage of the word back to 1300 when the English language adopted it from the French usable, meaning custom, experience, or habit (source). 3) - usable byproducts Syn: useable Similar to: useful , utile Derivationally related forms: usableness , use , useableness (for: useable ), use (for: useable ) 2. fit or ready for use or service - the toaster was still functional even after being dropped - the lawnmower is a bit rusty but still usable - an operational aircraft - reader: (a) to respond "Yes" to both would be logically inconsistent, i.e., from the Also, useable. Learn The Correct Spelling (All Countries), Signalling Or Signaling Correct Version (UK/US Statistics), Authorisation vs Authorization Heres The Correct Spelling (All Variations), 9 Professional Ways to Say Im Excited to Meet You, 10 Other Ways to Say I Understand Your Concern, 10 Other Ways to Say I Truly Appreciate It, 10 Best Replies When Someone Says Be Safe. Synonyms for UNUSABLE: useless, impractical, unsuitable, unworkable, unserviceable, inoperable, impracticable, unavailable; Antonyms of UNUSABLE: usable, useful . Some notable exceptions to these guidelines include accessible, digestible, flexible, and suggestible. I haven't been able to find anything definite, even after searching this site, which surprised me a little. Definition The word usable/useable in its broadest sense only has one definition, but there are nuances in meaning. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. capable of or suitable for being used for a particular purpose, Palter, Dissemble, and Other Words for Lying, Skunk, Bayou, and Other Words with Native American Origins, Words For Things You Didn't Know Have Names, Vol. After all that steps, 220 pounds of fresh-picked beans will wind up as about 30 pounds of usable product. Definition (adj) capable of being put to use Synonyms: useable. Yes, we need more budget money for parks, but only after we have a workable plan for these parks to be real. Many people believe that usable is the American English spelling while useable is the British English spelling, which explains this hefty divide (since there are more people using American English than British English). Consider the following sentences, which illustrate how we use it. Consider the following sentences, which illustrate how we use it. The biggest of these is The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) which boasts a database of more than a billion words. Even though the bicycle is rusty, it is still usable. There are grammar debates that never die; and the ones highlighted in the questions in this quiz are sure to rile everyone up once again. Copyright HarperCollins Publishers Derived forms usability (usability) or useability (useability) or usableness (usableness) or useableness (useableness) noun usably (usably) or useably (useably) adverb Word Frequency usable in American English (juzbl ) adjective to drop the first 'e'). When the first two human colonists land on Mars, they could step into their ready-made living quarters, remove their space helmets and inhale deliciously A FOUR--year-old Moroccan boy who was born with no nose or eyes, without a functioning mouth and missing parts of his skull, has been given life-changing U.S. Navy's first nuclear powered Trident submarine, USS Ohio, SSBN-726, awaits christening ceremonies at a general dynamics electric boat division in Groton 3D printed furniture has generally been a rather tough sell for most 3D printer owners. Thanks for the interesting ngram links, I've upvoted your answer, but will be accepting Gnawme's. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Without a noun, the word becomes useless in a sentence. The rules below cover most suffix-related spelling: We will treat words that end in e as a separate category in terms of spelling rules, and use falls into this category. CEO Update: Paving the road forward with AI and community at the center, Building a safer community: Announcing our new Code of Conduct, AI/ML Tool examples part 3 - Title-Drafting Assistant, We are graduating the updated button styling for vote arrows. As a broad rule, British English usually tries to keep the spelling of words it has borrowed from other languages, while American English tries to spell words as they sound (source). Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Usable. Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/usable. Forum discussions with the word(s) "useable" in the title: In other languages: Spanish | French | Italian | Portuguese | Romanian | German | Dutch | Swedish | Russian | Polish | Czech | Greek | Turkish | Chinese | Japanese | Korean | Arabic. However, as with all language rules in English, there are exceptions. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. What does the word useable mean? In this one, I ended up with only six usable saltwater-chilled water bottles. Interestingly, usable is the only recognized spelling of the word in The Cambridge Dictionary. Again, usable is by far the most popular choice, and it was at the peak of its popularity in the mid-1900s (having started to die off slowly since then). Hear a word and type it out. I think this one has to do with the long vowel, as in. Crumpton turned the young man into an asset, and he provided an immense amount of usable information. That is, current usage in both American English and British English strongly favors usable over useable. We need a new one. commit + ment = commitmentregret + ful + regretful, Change y to i in words that end in a consonant followed by y except when adding ing to avoid a double i., happy + ness = happinessgrumpy + ly = grumpily. Etymonline shows usable as being derived from the Old French usable. Usable is an adjective. Make sure to include the hyphen whenever youre writing it. One rule of thumb, though, would be to apply the variant consistently. In his 1986 book Forgotten Railways, he dismissed as smoke and mirrors the oft-used . Signalez une erreur ou suggrez une amlioration. @J.R. Collins Concise English Dictionary HarperCollins Publishers:: WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English 2023, WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English 2023, One or more forum threads is an exact match of your searched term. As a rule of thumb, we mostly use -ible when forming an adjective from a word we derive from a Latin verb ending in -ire or -ere (source). All Rights Reserved. In terms of American English, usable is the most acceptable version. Use -able when the root word is unchanged. For example, since "sizable" can mean "very large", some in the computer field argue that "sizeable" should be used to refer to screen objects that can be RE-sized. If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code. rev2023.6.2.43474. A search on this database shows that for every occurrence of useable, usable appears more than nine times more. Find and lookup the definition, synonyms, and antonyms of the word useable in our free online dictionary! Double the last letter when adding the suffix for single-syllable words that end in a single consonant. To start, we thought it made the most sense to define the words. This printer is hardly usable anymore! Is "swap" an accepted alternate spelling for "swab" in Australian English? 'Cause it wouldn't have made any difference, If you loved me, QGIS - how to copy only some columns from attribute table. As usual Bourdain serves up a well-seasoned hellbroth of candid, often outrageous stories from his worldwide misadventures. That helps to keep everything else standard, allowing usable to be the correct spelling no matter where you are in the world. There are many synonyms for usable, although its important to understand the context of a sentence before randomly replacing a word with a synonym. It further notes that the word was "not common before c.1840," so it would seem that useable is not an "archaic form" that fell into disfavor. For example, if we take the root word talk, we can add various suffixes to make it into a different word, such as talked, talking, talkative, talker, etc. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. The useage(sic) of, or rather the incidence of useing(sic) "useable" in the AmE corpus had its greatest increase in the 1970s. What is/are the origin/s of the use of to end to mean "to kill a person"? Did an AI-enabled drone attack the human operator in a simulation environment? To start, we thought it made the most sense to define the words. How does the number of CMB photons vary with time? We use it as a descriptive word. CAN YOU ANSWER THESE COMMON GRAMMAR DEBATES? For all those Anthony Bourdain fans who are hungering for more, here is Nasty Bits - a collection of his journalism. We can also say that something is functional meaning it is able to function and work as we expect it to. Even in non-English-speaking countries, like India, they use British English more often than American English. I suggest that one reason that Americans drop the E in many -able and -ing words is that in general, American spelling favors dropping UNNECESSARY letters. We found 29 dictionaries with English definitions that include the word usable: Click on the first link on a line below to go directly to a page where "usable" is defined. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012, Amtrak agrees to fix stations and pay $2.25 million to settle ADA discrimination claims, Toyotas robotic butler will serve you from the ceiling, 5 cheap electric cars to buy until Tesla delivers on its $25,000 promise, Build ice towers with bottled water and ice. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. available or convenient for use: 2000 square feet of usable office space. Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. This site is owned and operated by Sona Digital Media LLC. Subject Archaeology Art & Architecture Bilingual dictionaries Classical studies Encyclopedias English Dictionaries and Thesauri History Language reference Law Linguistics Literature Media studies . It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, Oxford Learner's Dictionaries Word of the Day, that can be used; in good enough condition to be used. 1 : capable of being used 2 : convenient and practicable for use usableness y-z-bl-ns noun usably y-z-bl adverb Synonyms available employable exploitable fit functional operable practicable serviceable useful See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus Example Sentences 2023. Mobile users: please report any problems. . I would note, however, that some dictionaries do not list useable at all. Useable is a correct variant spelling but is used less often. Usually, dictionaries enter the most common one first, followed by the less common one. If theyre a recognized variant, then theyre acceptable. While these corpora help us understand which word is more popular, it still doesnt explain why people choose one or the other. Is 'useable' preferred in certain regions, or just an alternate spelling of 'usable'? useable synonyms, useable pronunciation, useable translation, English dictionary definition of useable. You should always use that no matter what language you speak. tunnel + ed = tunnelledtravel + ing = travelling. Oxford Reference Publications Pages Publications . We can refer to other English-speaking countries like Canada or Australia to find out what they use. Youll notice the trendline is much different, but usable is still the most popular word. No matter which country youre from, usable is the more commonly accepted form. Thats why British English also uses the term. Double the l for words longer than one syllable that end in l. English speakers in the Americas predominantly use American spelling. Usable is the correct spelling. This is not just an "issues" book, however, but systematic, real-world instructions for developing applications that are better in every way. MnemonicDictionary.com - Meaning of usable and a memory aid (called Mnemonic) . What is the procedure to develop a new force field for molecular simulation? The word usable/useable in its broadest sense only has one definition, but there are nuances in meaning. I could not alter the "troublesome," because it is the nearest usable adjective for schwierig, which stands in the German. You're probably right about them picking a bad example; I just came across it because I was looking for sites that might answer my question. However, the truth is a little different from that. opposite unusable Definitions on the go Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary app. Furthermore, he has teaching experience from Aarhus University. His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project. Root words can create myriad new possibilities when combined with the many suffixes on offer in English. However, its also the American English spelling, meaning that you dont have to worry about which variation you use. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Well, weve already established that usable seems to be the most widely accepted and recognized word, but we can take this further with some statistics. First of all, according to Google, Useable is mentioned 436 times on The New York Times website, while Usable is mentioned 8,000 times. All Free. It usually refers to a machine or object of some kind with a function that other people can make use of. This is to demonstrate that, while useable isnt as common, both spellings are recognized and both are correct. Un oubli important ? 1) - the toaster was still functional even after being dropped - the lawnmower is a bit rusty but still usable - an operational aircraft - the dishwasher is now in working order Syn: functional , usable , operable , operational Similar to: serviceable Derivationally related forms: useableness , use , usableness (for: usable /juzbl/ that can be used; in good enough condition to be used How can we display this data in a usable form? You do have a good point about retaining the consonant sound. PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). the toaster was still functional even after being dropped the lawnmower is a bit rusty but still usable an operational aircraft the dishwasher is now in working order Definition (adj) capable of . Useable and usable both mean that something can be used. It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. If the suffix begins with a vowel (a, e, i, o, or u) or a y, then you usually drop the e before adding the suffix, as shown in the examples below: If we apply this rule to use, then it would follow that usable should be the correct spelling. Our goal is to create English lessons that are easy to understand for everyone. 13501400; Middle English
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