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Synonyms

marketable

American  
[mahr-ki-tuh-buhl] / ˈmɑr kɪ tə bəl /

adjective

  1. readily saleable.

  2. of or relating to selling or buying.

    marketable values; marketable areas.


marketable British  
/ ˈmɑːkɪtəbəl /

adjective

    1. being in good demand; saleable

    2. suitable for sale

  1. of or relating to buying or selling on a market

    marketable value

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

  • marketability noun
  • marketableness noun
  • marketably adverb
  • nonmarketability noun
  • nonmarketable adjective
  • unmarketable adjective

Etymology

Origin of marketable

First recorded in 1590–1600; market + -able

Explanation

Marketable things are in a position to be sold, or are in demand in some way. A marketable employee is one that potential bosses want to hire. If you graduate from college with a degree in engineering or a nursing license, you will probably be marketable — employers will want to hire you. You might worry that you'll be less marketable if you major in philosophy or French literature, but in certain fields you will still be quite marketable. You can also describe anything that people will want to buy as marketable: "Your spinach-flavored ice cream idea just doesn't seem very marketable to me."

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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.

Canadian production of marketable natural gas climbed 6.3% on-year, notching a third consecutive record high as domestic consumption and exports grew.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

If companies can find a way to produce these fuels at marketable prices similar to fossil fuels, it's obvious what kind of impact they could have.

From BBC • Mar. 24, 2026

“Crash” eschewed Charli’s typical boundary-pushing electronic sound to aim for something notably more commercial, and, ever the rebel, Charli attempted to homogenize this marketable music with visual ideas that were more to her own taste.

From Salon • Feb. 8, 2026

So the world’s most marketable athlete must be a soccer player, right?

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 14, 2026

He hadn’t seen what he’d been doing for years—building computers, writing code, playing games, installing complicated software and operating systems—as something marketable or valuable, something that offered status or options in the larger society.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz