Agreeable

How to spell agreeable

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce agreeable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does agreeable mean?

1. adjectivePleasant, enjoyable, or pleasing to experience.
2. adjectiveWilling to accept or consent to something proposed.

Agreeable in a sentence

• The hotel garden made for an agreeable place to read.

• If everyone is agreeable to the new schedule, we will start on Monday.

• We spent an agreeable afternoon walking along the coast.

• The landlord proved agreeable to a short extension of the lease.

Where does agreeable come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back through Middle English and Old French to the verb agreer, which meant 'to please' or 'to receive kindly'. That verb was formed from the phrase a gre, meaning 'to one's liking', where gre came from the Latin gratum, the neuter of gratus, meaning 'pleasing, welcome, or thankful'. The adjective then took on the common suffix -able, giving the literal idea of something 'able to please' or 'capable of being agreed to', which neatly explains both modern meanings: something pleasant and someone willing to consent. The same Latin gratus also lies behind English words such as 'grateful', 'gratitude', and 'gratuity', all carrying that thread of pleasing or thanking. The spelling trap is the run of vowels in the middle, agree plus able, where the silent final e of 'agree' is kept before the suffix, producing the double e followed by able rather than the more common -ible ending.

How the word is built

• agree (from Old French agreer: to please)
• -able (capable of, suited to)