livable

Etymology

It is formed from English live + -able,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} and is also spelt “liveable”.^[2][3][8] The verb goes back to Old English lifian (“to live”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Likely to live, viable: 1611, a sense recorded only in the early 17th century.^[4][5][6][3] Etymonline dates it to the 1610s.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In 1664 Pepys used the word for what is conducive to comfortable living, another sense that did not last.^[6][4][5] The main modern sense, of a house, room or place, suitable to live in, dates from 1814, in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.^[2][6][4] From 1841 it was also used of life itself, that can be lived, bearable.^[4][5] From 1860 it was used of people, easy to live with, also as liveable with.^[4][5] Barnhart records the spelling livable from 1865.^[6] Merriam-Webster gives livable first and calls liveable less common,^[3] while the Oxford Dictionary of English treats livable as a variant spelling of liveable.^[9]

Timeline

• 1611 – likely to live (obsolete).^[4][6][3]
• 1664 – conducive to comfortable living (obsolete).^[4][6]
• 1814 – of a house, room or place: suitable for living in.^[4][2][6]
• 1841 – of life: that can be lived; bearable.^[4][5]
• 1860 – of people: easy to live with; companionable.^[4][5]
• 1865 – the spelling livable.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Suitable or pleasant to live in; habitable: After a month of repairs the cottage was finally livable.^[8][3][4]
2. That can be lived or put up with; bearable, endurable.^[8][3][4]
3. Of a person: easy to live with; companionable; often livable with.^[4][5]
4. Likely to live; viable (obsolete).^[4][5]

Word family

• livableness
• livability
• unlivable

Related words

• live
• life
• alive

References

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