PASSABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does passable mean? 

• PASSABLE (adjective)
  The adjective PASSABLE has 2 senses:

1. able to be passed or traversed or crossed

2. about average; acceptable

  Familiarity information: PASSABLE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PASSABLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Able to be passed or traversed or crossed

Context example:

the road is passable

Similar:

navigable (able to be sailed on or through safely)

negotiable (capable of being passed or negotiated)

climbable; surmountable (capable of being surmounted)

travelable; traversable (capable of being traversed)

Antonym:

impassable (incapable of being passed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

About average; acceptable

Synonyms:

adequate; fair to middling; passable; tolerable

Context example:

more than adequate as a secretary

Similar:

satisfactory (giving satisfaction)

 Context examples 

I find him very passable, Mary—very passable, indeed.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

What is passable in youth is detestable in later age.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I sat there, sturdily conning my books, until dinner-time (we were out of school for good at three); and went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His manners now, though not polished, were more than passable: they were grateful, animated, manly; his expressions were those of an attached father, and a sensible man; his loud tones did very well in the open air, and there was not a single oath to be heard.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The horror of being blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls, while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)