Colourable
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Colourful. not-comparable, obsolete
- 2 Apparently true; specious; potentially justifiable. not-comparable
"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."
- 3 Deceptive; fake, misleading. archaic, not-comparable, sometimes
"Glauce, what needs this colourable word, / To cloke the cause, that hath it selfe bewrayd?"
- 4 Deceptive; fake, misleading.; In appearance only; not in reality what it purports to be, hence counterfeit, feigned. archaic, not-comparable, sometimes
- 5 That can be coloured. not-comparable
"This matter, however, is not itself coloured, but is only capable of exhibiting colours, by the addition of other matters : and hence we have ventured to call it the colourable, rather than the colouring parts of the plant, by which we merely indicate its property of becoming coloured, but not its actual possession of colour."
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
From colour + -able.
More for "colourable"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.