answerable
Americanadjective
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liable to be asked to give account; responsible.
He is answerable to a committee for all his decisions.
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capable of being answered.
a question answerable by mail.
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proportionate; correlative (usually followed byto ).
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corresponding; suitable (usually followed byto ).
The amount is not answerable to my needs.
adjective
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(postpositive; foll by for or to) responsible or accountable
answerable for someone's safety
answerable to one's boss
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able to be answered
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of answerable
Explanation
If a question is answerable, you have a response to it. But if a person is answerable, she is responsible for something, the way a team captain is answerable for the behavior of the team as a whole. Sometimes you'll hear a question described as being answerable or unanswerable. "What's the meaning of life?" is unanswerable, while "What did you have for breakfast?" is answerable. But if you are answerable for something (or someone), it means you're accountable. So you might say that a country's president is answerable for the actions of that country's military, or that your neighbor is answerable for the damage his dog did to the plastic flamingo lawn ornaments in your yard.
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.
Those are answerable questions—and they are the ones actually worth asking.
From Barron's • May 30, 2026
As CEO of one of the only cooperatives in the Fortune 500, today she’s answerable not to shareholders or investors but to thousands of decentralized owner-members.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 27, 2026
She said it meant Lowe was "answerable to the House" about the allegations, and that it was not "the constitutional role of the court to supervise or interfere with that".
From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026
They had put their lives on the line to create a democratic republic, answerable to the people and not a king.
From Salon • Nov. 5, 2025
Perhaps there was some truth in this; though I doubt whether his reserve, or anybody’s reserve, can be answerable for the event.
From "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
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.
