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tangible

UK/ˈtæn.d͡ʒɪ.b(ə)l/US/ˈtæn.d͡ʒə.bəl/
adjectiveB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,004 of 15,258neutral

Tangible means real enough to touch or to measure. Something you could put down on a table.

In law and accounting, tangible assets are the physical ones — buildings, machinery, stock — as against intangible ones like a brand or a patent. Everyday English uses it for anything that has finally turned solid: tangible progress, tangible results, tangible evidence. It also describes atmosphere, oddly enough, since a tangible silence is one you can almost feel on your skin. The opposite is intangible.

Definitions of tangible

  1. 1adjectivetangibleAble to be touched, or solid and definite enough to be certain of.B2+

    “We need tangible results by the end of the month.”

Also accepted in games: concrete

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *teh₂g-

  2. Latin

    tangibilis

  3. Middle French

    tangible

  4. English, today

    tangible

Borrowed from Middle French tangible, from Latin tangibilis, from Latin tangere (“to touch”)

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Adjectives, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 12 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

tangible in the wild

  • Metaphorically, something can also be said to be "cognitively tangible" if one can easily understand it.

    Tangibility

  • In most cases, only tangible assets are referred to as fixed.

    Fixed asset

  • A tangible user interface (TUI) is a user interface in which a person interacts with digital information through the physical environment.

    Tangible user interface

  • In English law and some Commonwealth legal systems, items of tangible property are referred to as choses in possession (or a chose in possession in the singular).

    Tangible property

  • Financial assets are usually more liquid than tangible assets, such as commodities or real estate.

    Financial asset

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.