adjective
Other Word Forms
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reusabilitynoun
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reusablenessnoun
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reuseabilitynoun
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reuseablenessnoun
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unusablenessnoun
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unuseablenessnoun
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usabilitynoun
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usablenessnoun
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useabilitynoun
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useablenessnoun
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nonreusableadjective
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nonreuseableadjective
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nonusableadjective
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nonuseableadjective
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reusableadjective
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reuseableadjective
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unusableadjective
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unuseableadjective
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unusablyadverb
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unuseablyadverb
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usablyadverb
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useablyadverb
Etymology
Origin of usable
Explanation
Something that's usable can be successfully used right away for its intended purpose. If your car is usable, it's running just fine. A usable tent has all of its poles and is more or less waterproof, and a usable pair of shoes fits well and doesn't have holes. Describing something as usable can sometimes be faint praise: "Well, this basketball is usable, but just barely." When information is described as usable, it usually means it's actively available, and not just stored in a computer, for example. This is a relatively new adjective, first appearing around 1840.
Vocabulary lists containing usable
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.
Money generated by Daisy Chain Fields will be “flexible dollars,” Iyer explained, usable for anything an organization needs to fill in the gaps.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
Generally, an employee told AFP, a usable model required tens of thousands of hours of data.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
Some of the light becomes trapped inside the material and eventually turns into heat, lowering the amount of usable energy the cell can produce.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
Chip yields refer to the amount of usable chips that come from a single wafer.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
Galileo’s first telescope had a usable magnification of 8x; by the beginning of 1610 he had managed to produce one that had a magnification of 3 ox and he had begun to explore the heavens.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
