eatable

English

Etymology

From eat +‎ -able (“able, capable”).

Adjective

eatable (comparative more eatable, superlative most eatable)

1. Able to be eaten; edible.
   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

     The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable;

   • 1891, Alfred Russel Wallace, Natural selection and tropical nature‎^[1], page 399:

     When the seeds are larger, softer, and more eatable, they are protected by an excessively hard and stony covering, as in the plum and peach tribe ; or they are enclosed in a tough horny core, as with crabs and apples.

   • 1911, “Baboon”, in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:

     Their diet includes practically everything eatable they can capture or kill.

Usage notes

Rather informal, and sometimes proscribed by authorities. edible is the usual term, and much more frequent, while comestible is relatively formal.

More narrowly, used to describe food that can be eaten, but is not of very high quality.

Synonyms

• comestible
• edible

Antonyms

• uneatable

Coordinate terms

• drinkable, potable

Derived terms

• eatableness
• noneatable

 

Translations

able to be eaten — see edible

Noun

eatable (plural eatables)

1. (chiefly in the plural) Anything edible; food.
   • 1675, E. W., An Exact Relation of All the Late Revolutions in Messina‎^[2], London, page 2:

     The Excise which is laid very high throughout all Sicily, especially upon all eatables and wearing apparel is usually there […]

   • 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer‎^[3], London: F. Newbery, act II, page 18:

     Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see the eatables and drinkables brought upo’ the table, and then I’m as bauld as a lion.

   • 1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days‎^[4], Part I, Chapter 2:

     […] the ground […] was already being occupied by the “cheap Jacks,” with their green-covered carts and marvellous assortment of wares; and the booths of more legitimate small traders, with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables; and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wild Indians.

   • 1890, Knut Hamsen, Sult (Hunger), Part One, at p.45 (Canongate Books Ltd. 2016 paperback edition), Sverre Lyngstad translation:

     Someplace in the Hegdehaugen area I stopped outside a grocer's where some food was displayed in the window. A cat lay asleep beside a round loaf of white bread, and just behind it was a bowl of lard and several jars of oats. I stood eyeing these eatables a while, but since I didn't have anything to buy with I turned away from them and continued my tramp.

   • 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 21, in Anne of Green Gables‎^[5], London: L.C. Page & Co, page 222:

     “You’ll be using the best tea-set, of course, Marilla,” she said. “Can I fix up the table with ferns and wild roses?”
     “I think that’s all nonsense,” sniffed Marilla. “In my opinion it’s the eatables that matter and not flummery decorations.”

   • 2011 January 8, “For kids’ sake, a long, cold wake”, in Deccan Herald:

     The presence of a large number of people ensured that vendors selling eatables made brisk business.

Synonyms

• comestible
• edible