• Colourable

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /ˈkÊŒləɹəb(É™)l/

    Alternative forms

    Origin

    From colour + -able.

    Full definition of colourable

    Adjective

    colourable

    1. (obsolete) Colourful.
    2. Apparently true; specious; potentially justifiable.
      • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.8:Doth the master make any bargaine, or dispatch that pleaseth not? it is immediately smothered and suppressed, soone after forging causes, and devising colourable excuses, to excuse the want of execution or answer.
      • 1612, John Smith, Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia, Chapel Hill 1988 (Select Edition of his Writings), p. 178:they told him their comming was for some extraordinary tooles and shift of apparell; by this colourable excuse, they obtained 6. or 7. more to their confederacie ....
      • 2003, Ofer Raban, Modern legal theory and judicial impartiality, p. 83:These three examples have what may be called a 'colourable' claim for a public justification: they do not appear to us as checkerboard statues because, looking at the distinctions they draw, we presume the required justification does exist.
    3. (now rare) Deceptive; fake, misleading.
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iii:Glauce, what needs this colourable word,
        To cloke the cause, that hath it selfe bewrayd?
    4. That can be coloured.
    The following is perhaps not durably archived:
      • 2010, October 4, J Murali, Sci-Tech
        Internet : Online document sharing: expanding frontiers, This service offers all the essential colouring tools _ a pen, a pencil, colouring palette etc _ and presents a variety of colourable pictures for helping the child simulate a real colouring experience.

    Usage notes

    The sense "that can be coloured" is more common in American than in British English.

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