Passable means good enough, or able to be travelled along. A passable meal, a passable road, barely passable.
The first sense is faint praise and deliberately so — passable means it will do and no more. The second is literal and important in mountains and in winter: a passable road is one you can get along. Note that both senses come from pass, and that impassable belongs to the second only.
1adjectivepassableGood enough and no more.
“My French is passable, but I'm far from fluent.”
2adjectiveableAble to be travelled along.
“After the snow melted, the mountain road was passable again.”
passable is a quality of adequacy.
French passable comes from passer, to pass, from Latin passus, a step. Pace and pass come from the same stepping.
French
passable
English, today
passable
From French passable, equivalent to pass + -able.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA