Dictionary

assignable en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /əˈsaɪnəbl̩/

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin assignōlbor. Old French assignerbor. Middle English assignen English assign Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Italic *-ðlom Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin -ābilis Old French -ablebor. Middle English -able English -able English assignable From assign + -able.

Meanings

1. Capable of being assigned (all senses).
   • First, we were forced to infer era of service from birthdate, resulting in a relatively small number of respondents assignable to the post-EO era veterans condition. 1995, George H. Lawrence, Thomas D. Kane, “Military Service and Racial Attitudes of White Veterans”, in Armed Forces & Society, volume 22, number 2, page 252:
   • In many programming languages, numeric values are not assignable to string variables.
2. Capable of being specified or shown.
   • While, on the one hand, industry is limited by capital, so on the other, every increase of capital gives, or is capable of giving, additional employment to industry ; and this without assignable limit. 1848, John Stuart Mill, “Fundamental Propositions Respecting Capital”, in Principles of Political Economy, volume I, New York: D. Appleton and Company, published 1893, book I, page 98:
   • Now, certainly, in a general view, the purpose of the Platonic soldier was the same, but with this important difference—that his fighting condition was not needed on one or two days consecutively, but on many days, and not against a day punctually assignable, but against a season or period perhaps of months, quite indeterminate as to its beginning, end, or duration. 1853, Thomas De Quincey, “Plato’s Republic”, in Historical and Critical Essays, volume I, Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields:

Forms

Antonyms

nonassignable · unassignable