edible

Pronunciation

• UK: /ˈɛdɪbəl/^[1]
• US: /ˈɛdəbəl/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin edibilis (“eatable”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from edō (“to eat”) and the suffix -ibilis,^[7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *ed- (“to eat”),^[2][5] the root that also gave eat.^[5][9][10] Klein compares comestible, esculent and obese,^[9] and Partridge edacious, from edāx (“voracious”).^[11] Johnson (1755) derived it directly from the Latin verb.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Fit to be eaten: Merriam-Webster and the Barnhart Concise Dictionary date it to 1594,^[7][13] Etymonline to the 1590s^[2] and the Shorter Oxford to the late 16th century.^[14] The OED and the full Barnhart give 1611, from Cotgrave's French–English dictionary.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its first sense.^[3][15] Johnson (1755) defined it as "fit to be eaten; fit for food" and quoted Bacon's remark that some flesh, such as horses and dogs, is not edible.^[12] The noun, an article of food and usually in the plural, follows in 1661.^[3][15] The adjective names several animals valued as food, such as the edible crab, the edible dormouse, the edible frog and the edible snail.^[14]

Timeline

• 1594 – fit to be eaten (Merriam-Webster's date).^[7][13]
• 1611 – the same sense, the OED's first record, in Cotgrave.^[3][4]
• 1661 – noun, an article of food.^[3][15]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as fit for food.^[12]
• 1772 – edibleness.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Fit or safe to be eaten, especially by people; not poisonous: Only some of these berries are edible.^[5][17][7]

Noun

1. Something fit to be eaten; food, usually in the plural: They packed bread, cheese and other edibles.^[5][17][3]

Word family

• edibility
• edibleness
• inedible
• nonedible
• unedible

Related words

• eat
• eatable
• comestible
• esculent
• obese
• edacious

Usage notes

Wiktionary notes that edible is the usual word for "able to be eaten", while eatable is rather informal and comestible fairly formal.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
16. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins