tenable

Etymology

It is borrowed from French tenable (“that can be held”),^[2][3][4] an adjective recorded in French from the 12th century,^[2][5] formed from tenir (“to hold”) and -able,^[2][3] from Latin teneō (“to hold, keep”),^[5][6][7] from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[6][4] Etymonline explains the step from "stretch" to "hold" through the idea of causing something to be maintained,^[5] and Skeat notes that the Latin verb originally meant to extend.^[8] Cotgrave glossed the French word as "holdable".^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Able to be held against attack, of a military position: 1579, in G. Fenton's translation of Guicciardini's history.^[2][4][7] Etymonline likewise says that it was first used of fortresses, in the 1570s.^[5]

Semantic evolution

English took the word first as a military term, and Johnson's quotations of 1755 still show towns and castles made tenable.^[9] In 1604, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, a sight is to be kept "tenable in your silence still", the more literal sense of something that can be held back or retained,^[4][2] a use now rare.^[2][10] The step from fortresses to arguments is first recorded in 1711, in Addison's Spectator,^[2][7][5] and Johnson already had the figure of the atheist who has "not found his post tenable".^[9] Collins gives only this broad sense of being upheld or defended.^[11] A later sense, of something like an office that can be occupied or enjoyed, is recorded from 1840.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1579 – of a position or fortress, able to be defended against attack.^[2][4]
• 1604 – able to be held back or retained, in Shakespeare's Hamlet.^[2]
• 1711 – of an opinion or statement, able to be defended against objection.^[2][7]
• 1840 – able to be held, occupied or enjoyed, as of an office.^[2][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Able to be maintained against argument or objection; reasonable or defensible: The old explanation no longer seems tenable.^[11][4][2]
2. Able to be defended against attack: The garrison judged the fort no longer tenable.^[4][2]
3. Of an office or position, able to be occupied or held.^[4][10][2]
4. (archaic) Able to be kept or held in control.^[4][2][10]

Word family

• tenability
• tenably
• tenableness

Related words

• untenable
• tenet
• tenant
• tenacious
• tenure
• thin

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins