explicable
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- nonexplicable adjective
Etymology
Origin of explicable
1550–60; < Latin explicābilis, equivalent to explicā ( re ) to explicate + -bilis -ble
Explanation
Can you understand your chemistry teacher's explanation of how to do an experiment? Then it's explicable, able to be comprehended clearly and accurately. Since the 16th century, the adjective explicable has been used for things that are intelligible or that can be solved. It comes from the Latin explicabilis, "capable of being unraveled," and its root, explicare, "unfold or explain." These days you're most likely to find it in academic or formal writing, not always the most explicable of genres.
Vocabulary lists containing explicable
Power Suffix: -able
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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.
At the beginning, he shows off a kind of narrative gun, by warning that “strange and not entirely explicable things are nowadays happening in the world of wind.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025
She said a short way into that conversation "it became clear to me as a clinician that these were not clinically explicable collapses".
From BBC • Feb. 24, 2025
What vague narrative there is comes across as barely explicable.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 19, 2024
Not everyone is explicable or easily defined, nor should they be.
From Salon • Sep. 23, 2022
If the gene was the central currency of biological information, then major characteristics of the living world—not just heredity—should be explicable in terms of genes.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
