acceptable
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Pronunciation
- IPA: /əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/, /ækˈsɛp.tə.bəl/[1]
Etymology
It is borrowed from Old French acceptable (“pleasant, agreeable”) and directly acceptābilis (“worthy of acceptance”),[2][3][4] from acceptāre (“to take or receive willingly”) (see accept).[2][5]
Earliest recorded meaning
Pleasing, welcome, worthy of being gladly received: about 1386 in the OED,[6] the late 14th century in Etymonline.[2]
Semantic evolution
The core idea, according to Etymonline, is of being sure of a welcome.[2] From pleasing it weakened to merely satisfactory or adequate, and to tolerable.[7][8] The catchphrase the acceptable face of something, its presentable side, is from 1981.[6]
Timeline
Modern meaning
Adjective
- Good enough to satisfy a need or standard; satisfactory or adequate.
- Worthy of being accepted; pleasing or welcome.
- Tolerable or allowed: an acceptable risk.
Word family
- acceptability
- acceptably
- acceptableness
Related words
- accept
- acceptance
- unacceptable
- capable
References
- ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
- ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins