solvable

• solvible (obsolete)

solve +‎ -able. Piecewise doublet of soluble.

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

solvable

1. Capable of being solved.

   Synonym: soluble

   Antonyms: unsolvable, insolvable, insoluble

   a solvable problem

   • 1677, Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, London: William Shrowsbery, “De homine,” Chapter 2, p. 56,

     Intellective Memory, which I call an act of the intellective faculty because it is wrought by it, though I do not inquire how or where, because it is not solvible:

   • 1732, Henry Home, Lord Kames, “Beneficium cedendarum actionum”, in Essays upon Several Subjects in Law‎, Edinburgh, page 19:

     Questions of this Nature may be easily solvable in the simple Cases.

   • 1856, Abraham Lincoln, Speech delivered before the first Republican State Convention of Illinois, Bloomington, 29 May, 1856, in Arthur Brooks Lapsley (ed.), The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, New York: The Lamb Publishing Company, Volume 2, p. 271,

     It is a very strange thing, and not solvable by any moral law that I know of, that if a man loses his horse, the whole country will turn out to help hang the thief; but if a man but a shade or two darker than I am is himself stolen, the same crowd will hang one who aids in restoring him to liberty.

   • 1886, Thomas Hardy, chapter 17, in The Mayor of Casterbridge‎, volume 1, London: Smith, Elder, page 211:

     Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge despite his words and her father’s dismissal? His occult breathings to her might be solvable by his course in that respect.

   • 2010, Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question‎, New York: Bloomsbury, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 97:

     This is a mystery that is solvable with a phone call.

2. (obsolete) Capable of being dissolved or liquefied.

   Synonym: soluble

   Antonyms: unsolvable, insolvable, insoluble

   • 1664, John Chandler (translator), Van Helmont’s Works, London: Lodowick Lloyd, A Treatise of Fevers, Chapter 8, p. 971,

     […] they administer Pearles, and Corrals being beaten to dust or dissolved in distilled vinegar, or the juice of limons, and again dryed, and solvable in any potable liquour:

3. (obsolete) Able to pay one's debts.

   Synonym: solvent

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, “Section 4”, in The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, book, page 131:

     […] although imprisonment was imposed by law on persons not solvable, yet officers were unwilling to cast them into goale,

   • 1703, John Dennis, A Proposal for Putting a Speedy End to the War‎, London: Daniel Brown and Andrew Bell, page 19:

     The Government is solvable in case of Loss, whereas private Men often fail;

4. (obsolete, rare) Capable of being paid and discharged.[1]

   solvable obligations

• solvable group
• solvableness
• insolvable
• unsolvable

• solvability

From Latin solvere with -able.

• Audio

  (file)

solvable (plural solvables)

1. solvent

• “solvable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.