amenable
Americanadjective
-
ready or willing to answer, act, agree, or yield; open to influence, persuasion, or advice; agreeable; submissive; tractable.
an amenable servant.
- Synonyms:
- easy, docile, manageable
- Antonyms:
- recalcitrant, stubborn
-
liable to be called to account; answerable; legally responsible.
You are amenable for this debt.
-
capable of or agreeable to being tested, tried, analyzed, etc.
- Synonyms:
- responsible, accountable
adjective
-
open or susceptible to suggestion; likely to listen, cooperate, etc
-
accountable for behaviour to some authority; answerable
-
capable of being or liable to be tested, judged, etc
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of amenable
First recorded in 1590–1600; from Anglo-French, equivalent to Middle French amen(er) “to lead to” ( a- a- 5 + mener, from Late Latin mināre “to push, impel,” from Latin minārī “to threaten”) + -able -able
Explanation
If your friends want to try sky diving and you're amenable to the idea, sounds like you're going to be jumping out of a plane. If a person or thing is amenable to something, they are ready, willing, or responsive. Note that amenable is often followed by the preposition to, which makes amenable mean "able to be controlled or affected by something," as in: "They are usually amenable to our wishes" or "Her heart condition is not amenable to treatment." An amenable personality is open to influence or control and is willing to agree or yield.
Vocabulary lists containing amenable
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Rags-to-riches stories tend to be as fabulistic as tales designed to sell the upper class as fair and solicitous to the needs of working people, or amenable to Cinderella fantasies.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
Even if staircase codes become more amenable, developers won’t build much if they can’t obtain or afford the financing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026
"She phoned us herself, we've only ever dealt with her and she's very, very amenable," he said.
From BBC ● May 5, 2026
Learning that he “was not amenable to removal,” the agents dropped him off at a coffee shop without informing his attorneys or family.
From Slate ● Mar. 19, 2026
Somebody in a shelter a couple of days before had told us how delightful—how gorgeously amenable to hiking—the mountains of the Virginia Blue Ridge were.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
