3 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

passable

adjective

1: able to be passed or traversed or crossed; "the road is passable" [ant: {impassable}]

2: about average; acceptable; "more than adequate as a secretary" [syn: {adequate}, {fair to middling}]

3: neither good nor bad; "an indifferent performance"; "a gifted painter but an indifferent actor"; "her work at the office is passable"; "a so-so golfer"; "feeling only so-so"; "prepared a tolerable dinner"; "a tolerable working knowledge of French" [syn: {indifferent}, {so-so(p)}, {tolerable}]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Passable \Pass"a*ble\, adjective [Cf. F. passable.]

1. Capable of being passed, traveled, navigated, traversed, penetrated, or the like; as, the roads are not passable; the stream is passablein boats.

His body's a passable carcass if it be not hurt; it is a throughfare for steel. --Shak.

2. Capable of being freely circulated or disseminated; acceptable; generally receivable; current.

With men as with false money -- one piece is more or less passable than another. --L'Estrange.

Could they have made this slander passable. --Collier.

3. Such as may be allowed to pass without serious objection; tolerable; admissable; moderate; mediocre.

My version will appear a passable beauty when the original muse is absent. --Dryden.

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

62 Moby Thesaurus words for "passable": OK, acceptable, accessible, adequate, admissible, agreeable, all right, allowable, alright, attainable, average, better than nothing, betwixt and between, decent, dull, fair, fair to middling, fairish, good enough, goodish, indifferent, insipid, lackluster, mediocre, medium, middling, moderate, modest, namby-pamby, navigable, negotiable, not amiss, not bad, not half bad, not so bad, of a kind, of a sort, of sorts, okay, open, presentable, pretty good, reachable, respectable, satisfactory, so so, so-so, sufficient, tedious, tenable, tidy, tolerable, traversable, unblocked, unexceptionable, unexceptional, unobjectionable, unobstructed, vapid, viable, wishy-washy, workmanlike

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