movable

American  

[moo-vuh-buhl] / ˈmu və bəl /

Or moveable

adjective

1. capable of being moved; not fixed in one place, position, or posture.

2. Law. (of property)

   1. not permanent in reference to place; capable of being moved without injury.

   2. personal, as distinguished from real.

3. changing from one date to another in different years.

   a movable holiday.

4. (of type or matrices) able to be rearranged.

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noun

1. an article of furniture that is not fixed in place.

2. Law. Often movables. an article of personal property not attached to land.

movable British  

/ ˈmuːvəbəl /

adjective

1. able to be moved or rearranged; not fixed

2. (esp of religious festivals such as Easter) varying in date from year to year

3. (usually speltmoveable) law denoting or relating to personal property as opposed to realty

4. printing (of type) cast singly so that each character is on a separate piece of type suitable for composition by hand, as founder's type

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noun

1. (often plural) a movable article, esp a piece of furniture

Other Word Forms

• movability noun
• movableness noun
• movably adverb
• nonmovability noun
• nonmovable adjective
• nonmovableness noun
• nonmovably adverb
• unmovable adjective

Etymology

Origin of movable

1350–1400; Middle English mevable, movable < Anglo-French movable. See move, -able

Explanation

When you can change or shift the position of something, it's movable. With two flat tires and a bent wheel, your bike is no longer movable. Movable comes from move and its Latin source, movere, "set in motion." If you can move something, it's movable. That can mean physically moving it, the way you relocate a movable screen to divide a room. When events are movable, their dates can change. This is the source of "a movable feast," a religious holiday that falls annually on the same day of the week but a varying date. Easter is one example of a movable holiday.

Example Sentences

Irish-born, France-based architect and designer Eileen Gray gets her own gallery, which includes her late-1920s movable table, comprising two circular platforms held together by a bent-rectangle handle.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 23, 2025

Not only has the venturi-underbody ground effect philosophy introduced in 2022 been abandoned, but movable front and rear wings have been introduced.

From BBC • Dec. 10, 2025

In normal times, the rich are deeply rooted and not movable.

From Salon • Dec. 5, 2025

But then within some of the interstitial stuff and the scenes and the comedy and the physicality and the movement, yeah, it’s a movable feast.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 15, 2025

Workers erected a heated movable shelter that allowed them to apply staff to the exterior of the Mines Building no matter what the temperature.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson