Disposable

How to spell disposable

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce disposable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disposable mean?

1. adjectiveDesigned to be used once or briefly and then thrown away.
2. adjectiveDescribing the income remaining after taxes and essential costs, free to be spent or saved.

Disposable in a sentence

• The clinic stocks disposable gloves for every examination.

• Rising rents have squeezed the family's disposable income to almost nothing.

• The café switched from disposable cups to washable mugs to cut waste.

• Younger workers often have less disposable income than economists assume.

Where does disposable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends ultimately from the Latin verb disponere, meaning 'to arrange' or 'to set in different places', built from dis- 'apart' and ponere 'to put or place'. English took the verb 'dispose' through Old French disposer in the late 1300s, originally in the sense of arranging things or settling matters, which survives in phrases like 'man proposes, God disposes'. The adjective 'disposable' first meant simply 'able to be dealt with or got rid of', and only in the twentieth century, with the rise of mass-produced single-use goods, did it settle into its familiar sense of 'made to be thrown away'. The same ponere root sits inside a crowd of relatives such as 'compose', 'expose' and 'deposit', all sharing the idea of placing or putting. For spelling, it helps to remember the single s and the -able ending, since the word is built on 'dispose' plus -able, not on a Latin -ible form.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, away)
• pos (from Latin ponere: to place or put)
• -able (capable of being)