Potable
adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Any drinkable liquid; a beverage.
"When solar beams / Parch thirsty human veins, the damask'd meads, / Unforc'd display ten thousand painted flow'rs / Useful in potables."
- 2 any liquid suitable for drinking wordnet
- 1 Good for drinking without fear of waterborne disease or poisoning. formal
"potable water"
- 1 suitable for drinking wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases...but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul."
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Late Middle English potable (“drinkable, potable”), from Middle French, Old French potable (modern French potable (“drinkable, potable”)), and from its etymon Late Latin pōtābilis (“drinkable, potable”), from Latin pōtāre (“to drink”) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives indicating a capacity or worth of being acted upon). Pōtāre is the present active infinitive of pōtō (“to drink”), from Proto-Italic *pōtos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₃- (“to drink”). The English word is cognate with Catalan potable, Italian potabile, Spanish potable. The noun is derived from the adjective.
Related phrases
More for "potable"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.