comestible

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French comestible (“edible”), recorded in French from the 15th century, or its source borrowed from Medieval Latin comestibilis (“fit to eat, edible”), which Isidore used before 636;^[2] Barnhart, the Shorter Oxford and Hoad take it from French with the Latin word behind it.^[3][4][5] The Latin adjective is formed from comestus, a variant of comēsus, the past participle of comedō (“to eat up, consume”), with the suffix -ibilis.^[2][6][7] The American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart explain the variant as an alteration under the influence of pōtus (“drunk”),^[8][3] and Dictionary.com as an analogy with gestus and ūstus.^[9] The verb is formed from com-, here intensive, and edō (“to eat”),^[8][7][5] from Proto-Indo-European *ed- (“to eat”), the root of eat.^[7][8] For the noun, the OED compares Medieval Latin comestibilia (“food, victuals”) of the 13th century and the French noun, recorded from 1486.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Edible, fit to eat: 1483, in Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com likewise date the adjective to the late 15th century.^[6][10][9]

Semantic evolution

According to Etymonline the adjective fell out of use in the 17th century, and the word came back from French as a noun;^[7] the Shorter Oxford records the adjective only from the late 15th to the late 17th century.^[4] The noun, an article of food, is dated 1799 by the OED, from the Oracle & Daily Advertiser,^[2] and 1837 by Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged, from Theodore Hook's Jack Brag.^[3][7][6] The 1989 edition of the OED called the adjective obsolete and the noun "usually somewhat humorous or affected";^[11] the revised OED (2017) calls the adjective "now somewhat rare",^[2] and the Shorter Oxford labels the noun formal or jocular and usually plural.^[4] Collins likewise treats the adjective as a rare word for edible.^[12]

Timeline

• 1483 – edible, fit to eat.^[2][3]
• 1799 – noun, an article of food.^[2] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date the noun to 1837.^[3][7][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (rare) Fit to be eaten; edible: Only the roots of the plant are comestible.^{[6][13][12][2]}

Noun

1. Something that can be eaten; an article of food, usually in the plural: a hamper of wines and comestibles.^{[12][6][4][2]}

Related words

• edible
• comedo
• eat
• esurient

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin