penetrable

[ pen-i-truh-buhl ]

adjective

1. capable of being penetrated.

Other Words From

• pene·tra·bili·ty pene·tra·ble·ness noun
• pene·tra·bly adverb
• nonpen·e·tra·bili·ty noun
• non·pene·tra·ble adjective
• non·pene·tra·bly adverb
• self-pene·tra·bili·ty noun
• trans·pene·tra·ble adjective
• un·pene·tra·ble adjective
• un·pene·tra·bly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of penetrable¹

1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin penetrābilis, equivalent to penetrā ( re ) to penetrate + -bilis -ble

Example Sentences

Probing Venus’ mountains — Science News, February 12, 1972Venus’ perpetually cloud-shrouded surface remains penetrable only by radio waves.

From Science News

A wholly penetrable surface—one might also call her—that she then attempted to reshape into language that was capable of penetrating the rest of us.

From Time

This is a case in which I need whatever it is I think or believe to be penetrable, if only for myself.

From Time

Here the fragments lay together, a mass of beams penetrable by the waves, but still breaking their force.

From Project Gutenberg

This was the first time he had smarted in his penetrable part—the skin—and it made him very spiteful.

From Project Gutenberg

The niche set apart for them to inhabit in our secret hearts is not penetrable by the lights and noises of common day.

From Project Gutenberg

The night filled with so much driving snow had become a kind of white gloom, less penetrable than the darkness.

From Project Gutenberg

The skin is, in some parts, so thick and hard as scarcely to be penetrable by the sharpest sabre, or even by a musket-ball.

From Project Gutenberg