amenable
Americanadjective
-
ready or willing to answer, act, agree, or yield; open to influence, persuasion, or advice; agreeable; submissive; tractable.
an amenable servant.
- Synonyms:
- easy, docile, manageable
- Antonyms:
- recalcitrant, stubborn
-
liable to be called to account; answerable; legally responsible.
You are amenable for this debt.
-
capable of or agreeable to being tested, tried, analyzed, etc.
- Synonyms:
- responsible, accountable
adjective
-
open or susceptible to suggestion; likely to listen, cooperate, etc
-
accountable for behaviour to some authority; answerable
-
capable of being or liable to be tested, judged, etc
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of amenable
First recorded in 1590–1600; from Anglo-French, equivalent to Middle French amen(er) “to lead to” ( a- a- 5 + mener, from Late Latin mināre “to push, impel,” from Latin minārī “to threaten”) + -able -able
Explanation
If your friends want to try sky diving and you're amenable to the idea, sounds like you're going to be jumping out of a plane. If a person or thing is amenable to something, they are ready, willing, or responsive. Note that amenable is often followed by the preposition to, which makes amenable mean "able to be controlled or affected by something," as in: "They are usually amenable to our wishes" or "Her heart condition is not amenable to treatment." An amenable personality is open to influence or control and is willing to agree or yield.
Vocabulary lists containing amenable
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Keith and his son joined them, coming from the car, the Amenable Nicholson hovering behind ingratiatingly.
From Rimrock Trail by Dunn, J. Allan, (Joseph Allan)
Amenable, a-mēn′a-bl, adj. easy to be led or governed: liable or subject to.—ns.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various
The Amenable Nicholson clambered into the flivver beside Miranda Bailey.
From Rimrock Trail by Dunn, J. Allan, (Joseph Allan)
To me, then, these men have no private life, Nor claim to ties they have cut off from others; As Senators for arbitrary acts Amenable, I look on them—as such Let them be dealt upon.
From The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 by Coleridge, Ernest Hartley
But they are not all——" "Amenable to my orders?
From The Sins of Séverac Bablon by Rohmer, Sax
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
