feasibility

Etymology

It is formed from English feasible + -ity.^[2][3][4][5] The adjective feasible is from Anglo-Norman faisible, from Old French faisable (“possible, that may be done; easy, convenient”), from the stem of faire (“to do, make”), from Latin faciō (“to make, do”).^[3][2] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from the late 13th century.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Capability of being done; practicability: 1624, in a letter of Thomas James printed in Richard Parr's life of James Ussher.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1620s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica, the word was also used for a feasible thing,^[2][4] and Johnson (1755) gave only that sense, quoting Browne's "possibilities for feasibilities".^[5] A sense "capability of being made", recorded in 1655, did not last.^[2] The phrase feasibility study, a study of whether a proposed plan is practicable, is recorded from 1959, in the Times,^[2] and is now its most common use.^[4]

Timeline

• 1624 – capability of being done; practicability.^[2]
• 1646 – something feasible, in Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2][5]
• 1655 – capability of being made (obsolete).^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as "a thing practicable".^[5]
• 1959 – feasibility study.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality or state of being feasible; practicability: Engineers doubted the feasibility of the tunnel.^[2][7][4]
2. (rare) A feasible thing.^[2][4]
3. feasibility study, feasibility report: an assessment of whether a proposed plan or project can be carried out.^[2][4]

Related words

• feasible
• fact
• feat

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam