docile

[ dos-uhl; British doh-sahyl ]

adjective

1. easily managed or handled; tractable:

   a docile horse.

   Synonyms: obedient, malleable, manageable

2. readily trained or taught; teachable.

docile

/ ˈdəʊsaɪl; dəʊˈsɪlɪtɪ /

adjective

1. easy to manage, control, or discipline; submissive
2. rare.
   ready to learn; easy to teach

Derived Forms

• ˈdocilely, adverb
• docility, noun

Other Words From

• doc·ile·ly adverb
• do·cil·i·ty [do-, sil, -i-tee, doh-], noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of docile¹

First recorded in 1475–85; from Latin docilis “readily taught,” equivalent to doc(ēre) “to teach” + -ilis adjective suffix ( -ile )

Word History and Origins

Origin of docile¹

C15: from Latin docilis easily taught, from docēre to teach

Example Sentences

His loud, often profane way had been exchanged for a more docile demeanor.

From Time

The harder she looks, the more she sees beneath the “docile surface” of the streets.

From Washington Post

Sometimes large dogs need a heavy-duty crate even though their personality is docile.

From Popular-Science

She is the docile Earth-mother who generously balances and protects the environment and all its inhabitants.

From Nautilus

They note that the bowheads, which had initially been docile, started using the sea ice to avoid harpoons.

From Popular-Science

She also features a more natural face than the one of docile serenity so often bestowed on the Queen of Heaven.

From The Daily Beast

For the first few years, the public was fairly docile in response to the school wars.

From The Daily Beast

The middle classes,” Satyarthi once told the BBC, want “cheap, docile labour.

From The Daily Beast

The tabloids demand that Kate Middleton be as docile as Jane Seymour, whose personal motto was “Bound to obey and serve.”

From The Daily Beast

Spivack, meanwhile, continues to promise her American clients docile, submissive partners.

From The Daily Beast

It is the young animals of these species which are the most social and docile and most approach man in appearance.

From Project Gutenberg

It consisted in subjecting some of the docile herbivora more fully to human mastership.

From Project Gutenberg

She tried to turn a docile face toward old Kano; but the deepening glory of her husband's look drew her as light draws a flower.

From Project Gutenberg

Instead of creating men, a perfect God ought to have created only docile and submissive angels.

From Project Gutenberg

We have always been taught to think a nation sound and safe whose women were docile and domestic.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• easygoing
• gentle
• laid-back
• meek
• obedient
• pliable
• pliant
• well-behaved