Attributable

How to spell attributable

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce attributable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attributable mean?

1. adjectiveAble to be regarded as caused by or credited to a particular person, thing, or source.

Attributable in a sentence

• The auditors found that the loss was directly attributable to the new pricing policy.

• Only a small share of the delay is attributable to the supplier.

Where does attributable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb attribuere, meaning 'to assign, allot, or grant to someone'. That verb was built from ad-, meaning 'to' or 'toward', and tribuere, 'to allot or bestow', which itself came from tribus, the word for a 'tribe' or division of the Roman people, since allotments were originally distributed among the tribes. English borrowed the verb 'attribute' through French and Latin in the late 1400s, and the adjective 'attributable', meaning 'capable of being credited to a particular source', followed by the 1600s using the productive Latin-derived suffix -able. The shared tribu root also sits inside 'tribute' and 'contribute', which all involve giving or assigning. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle, '-trib-ut-a-ble', where the second vowel is a faint schwa, plus the choice of -able rather than -ible, which is correct here because the base 'attribute' is a recognisable whole word.

How the word is built

• at- (from ad-, 'to')
• tribut (from tribuere, 'to assign or allot')
• -able (adjective suffix, 'able to be')