Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

mutable

UK/ˈmjuːtəbəl/US/ˈmjuːtəbəl/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,494 of 15,258leans written

Mutable means liable to change. A mutable boundary, mutable rules, mutable and shifting.

In programming it is a precise and consequential term, since a mutable value can be altered after it is made and an immutable one cannot, which decides how a whole language behaves. Elsewhere it is a formal word for changeable.

Definitions of mutable

  1. 1adjectivemutableLiable to change.C2

    “Fashion is mutable, and what's cool this year will be embarrassing next year.”

mutable is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin mutabilis comes from mutare, to change.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *mey- (change)

  2. Latin

    mutabilis — liable to change

  3. Old French

    mutable

  4. Middle English

    mutable

  5. English, today

    mutable

From Middle English mutable, from Old French mutable, from Latin mutabilis (“liable to change”). by surface analysis, muta- + -able.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

mutable in the wild

  • Other benefits are that they are simpler to understand and reason about and offer higher security than mutable objects.

    Immutable object

  • The mutable sun squirrel (Heliosciurus mutabilis) is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae.

    Mutable sun squirrel

  • For example, a legal debate about sexual orientation concerns whether it is a mutable or immutable characteristic.

    Immutable characteristic

  • If it is mutable, then those characteristics can be changed.

    Immutable characteristic

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • immutable