Acceptable

How to spell acceptable

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce acceptable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does acceptable mean?

1. adjectiveSatisfactory or good enough to be allowed, approved, or tolerated.

Acceptable in a sentence

• The manager decided the revised budget was acceptable after a few small changes.

• Wearing jeans to the office is perfectly acceptable on a Friday.

Where does acceptable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin acceptabilis, meaning 'worthy of being received' or 'welcome'. That adjective grew from acceptare, a frequentative form of accipere 'to receive', which itself joined ad 'to' with capere 'to take'. So at its literal root the word describes something fit to be taken in or welcomed, and that same capere 'to take' lies hidden inside a whole family of relatives such as capture, receive, accept, and capable. English adopted it in the fifteenth century, borrowing through Old French acceptable while keeping close to the Latin spelling. The doubled c and the unstressed -table ending are the usual stumbling points: the first c is hard and the second soft, so the cluster sounds like 'k-s', which tempts writers to drop a letter.

How the word is built

• ac- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• cept (from capere: to take)
• -able (capable of, worthy of)