-ible

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• -able (productive)

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin -ibilis.

-ible

1. An adjective suffix, now usually in a passive sense; forms adjectives meaning "able to be", "relevant or suitable to, in accordance with", or expressing capacity or worthiness in a passive sense.

   convertible

• The form -able is usually used in the same sense and is pronounced the same, though sometimes equivalent terms have diverged in meaning: compare suggestable (“capable of being suggested”) with suggestible (“susceptible to influence by suggestion”).
• Generally not productive in English – most words ending in -ible are borrowed from Latin, or Old or Middle French, while -able is more common for producing new words. Examples of production in English include collectible and gullible.
• In general, forms derived from Latin verbs of the second, third, and fourth conjugations take -ible, as well as a few words whose roots end in a soft c or g. All other words take -able, particularly words from the Latin first conjugation, words that evolved through French, and words from Anglo-Saxon.
• Fowler, in his English Usage, recommended using -ible for simplicity in spelling with any verb whose root ends in a soft c or g (such as changible vs. changeable), but this recommendation has generally not been followed.
• Adjectives ending in -ible are occasionally nominalized, as in dirigible, foible, submersible. The adjective sense may become obsolete, as in foible.
• A few words end in “ible” but are not related to this suffix, instead being of different origin, generally a similar Latin suffix. Examples include crucible and mandible. See Etymology 2, below, for details.

• -ibly

• able
• Category:English unproductive suffixes

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin -i- + -bulum (instrumental suffix) or -bula (instrumental suffix), from Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom. Related to Latin suffixes -brum (candelabrum) and -bra (vertebra).

-ible

1. An instrumental suffix; forms nouns representing:
   1. a tool or instrument

      crucible, mandible, thurible

   2. a place or location

This use of -ible is not productive in English. Confusion may arise from mistaking nouns ending with this suffix as being forms derived from the adjectival suffixes mentioned in Etymology 1 above.

• bile, Biel, beli, Lieb

Borrowed from Latin -ibilis.

-ible m or f (adjective-forming suffix, masculine and feminine plural -ibles)

1. -ible, -able

• This suffix is used for verbs of the second and third conjugations, which end in -er, -re or -ir. For the first-conjugation verbs, which end in -ar, the suffix is -able.

Inherited from Old French -ible, from Latin -ibilis.

• IPA^(key): /ibl/

-ible (plural -ibles)

1. -ible

• “-ible”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Latin -ibilis.

-ible

1. -ible (variant of -able)

-ible m or f (adjective-forming suffix, plural -ibles)

1. (Beira, Northern Portugal) alternative form of -ível

• -able

Inherited from Latin -ibilis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈible/ [ˈi.β̞le]
• Rhymes: -ible
• Syllabification: -i‧ble

-ible m or f (adjective-forming suffix, masculine and feminine plural -ibles)

1. -ible

• “-ible”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024