pregnable

American  

[preg-nuh-buhl] / ˈprɛg nə bəl /

adjective

1. capable of being taken or won by force.

   a pregnable fortress.

2. open to attack; assailable.

   a pregnable argument.

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pregnable British  

/ ˈprɛɡnəbəl /

adjective

1. capable of being assailed or captured

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Other Word Forms

• pregnability noun

Etymology

Origin of pregnable

1400–50; late Middle English prenable < Middle French prenable, pregnable, equivalent to pren- (weak stem of prendre to seize, take < Latin pre ( he ) ndere; see prehension) + -able -able; -g- perhaps from obsolete expugnable (in same sense)

Example Sentences

Or would the 50-odd Allied divisions still in Britain mount an entirely new thrust at the demonstrably pregnable Atlantic Wall?

From Time Magazine Archive

This rule rigidly defined the Nazis' plan of action in the Balkans: cut Yugoslavia from Greece, pro-Nazi Croatia from anti-Nazi Serbia, pregnable Thrace from defensible central Greece, the tough Greeks from the tough British.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Duc de Crillon is sanguine; he told me, that in his opinion, Gibraltar was far more pregnable than Mahon.

From The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII by Sparks, Jared

The words the Man had intoned had been placed in his still pregnable mind by the tele-teach phones and record that the last Master had prepared before death had halted his experiments.

From The Ultimate Experiment by DeKy, Thornton

Let us assail this castle: it is pregnable: we shall have double honour.

From Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) by Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed