TRACTABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tractable mean? 

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

1. easily managed (controlled or taught or molded)

2. responsive to suggestions and influences

  Familiarity information: TRACTABLE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRACTABLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Easily managed (controlled or taught or molded)

Synonyms:

manipulable; tractable

Context example:

the natives...being...of an intelligent tractable disposition

Similar:

ductile; malleable (easily influenced)

docile; teachable (ready and willing to be taught)

tamable; tameable (capable of being tamed)

Also:

compliant (inclined to comply)

manageable (capable of being managed or controlled)

obedient (dutifully complying with the commands or instructions of those in authority)

docile (willing to be taught or led or supervised or directed)

tame; tamed (brought from wildness into a domesticated state)

Attribute:

flexibility; tractability; tractableness (the trait of being easily persuaded)

Antonym:

intractable (not tractable; difficult to manage or mold)

Derivation:

tractability; tractableness (the trait of being easily persuaded)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Responsive to suggestions and influences

Synonyms:

amenable; tractable

Context example:

an amenable child

Similar:

susceptible ((often followed by 'of' or 'to') yielding readily to or capable of)

Derivation:

tractability; tractableness (the trait of being easily persuaded)

 Context examples 

I never heard any harm of her; and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

But the weeks went by, and he continued to grow more tractable.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else’s brains if he could have got to his revolver.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I understand you well, said my master: it is now very plain, from all you have spoken, that whatever share of reason the Yahoos pretend to, the Houyhnhnms are your masters; I heartily wish our Yahoos would be so tractable.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As her appearance and spirits improved, Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris thought with greater satisfaction of their benevolent plan; and it was pretty soon decided between them that, though far from clever, she showed a tractable disposition, and seemed likely to give them little trouble.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am ever tender and true.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But in time Dennin grew more tractable. It seemed to her that he was growing weary of his unchanging recumbent position. He began to beg and plead to be released.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

He added, how I had endeavoured to persuade him, that in my own and other countries, the Yahoos acted as the governing, rational animal, and held the Houyhnhnms in servitude; that he observed in me all the qualities of a Yahoo, only a little more civilized by some tincture of reason, which, however, was in a degree as far inferior to the Houyhnhnm race, as the Yahoos of their country were to me; that, among other things, I mentioned a custom we had of castrating Houyhnhnms when they were young, in order to render them tame; that the operation was easy and safe; that it was no shame to learn wisdom from brutes, as industry is taught by the ant, and building by the swallow (for so I translate the word lyhannh, although it be a much larger fowl); that this invention might be practised upon the younger Yahoos here, which besides rendering them tractable and fitter for use, would in an age put an end to the whole species, without destroying life; that in the mean time the Houyhnhnms should be exhorted to cultivate the breed of asses, which, as they are in all respects more valuable brutes, so they have this advantage, to be fit for service at five years old, which the others are not till twelve.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)