usable

UK/ˈjuː.zə.bəl/US/ˈjuː.zə.bəl/

adjectiveB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,476 of 15,258leans written

Usable means in a state where it can be used. Still usable, a usable surface, usable data.

It sets a low bar and says so: usable means functional rather than good. In design, usability is a whole discipline measuring how easily people can actually do things with something, and the finding that nearly always holds is that testing with five users finds most of the problems. Note the spelling useable, which is also correct and less common.

Definitions of usable

1adjectiveusableIn a state where it can be used.B1+
“The old printer is still usable, but it's very slow.”

usable is a quality of being fit for use.

Where it comes from

Old French usable comes from user, to use, from Latin uti. Utility, usual and utensil come from the same using.

Old French
usable
English, today
usable

Built from

user · Old French — to use

From Old French usable, from the verb user (“to use”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

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usable in the wild

In economics, goods with a long usable life are referred to as durable goods.
Durability
In the Osaka area, PiTaPa is usable on the Osaka Municipal Subway and New Tram, Keihan Electric Railway, and Hankyu Railway.
PiTaPa
Part of the Nationwide Mutual Usage Service, PiTaPa is usable on public transport across Japan.
PiTaPa
Within autumn, 2007, the card will be usable for all the bus lines by the operators.
Hareca
At the same time Hareca was introduced, the three operators also introduced PiTaPa, meaning the latter card is also usable in those lines.
Hareca

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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.

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