Movable

How to spell movable

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce movable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does movable mean?

1. adjectiveCapable of being moved or shifted from one place to another; not fixed.
2. adjectiveIn law, describing personal possessions that can be relocated, as opposed to land or buildings.

Movable in a sentence

• The office uses movable partitions so the layout can change for each meeting.

• The will divided her movable goods between the two children and left the house to charity.

• Every movable piece of furniture was carried out before the painters arrived.

• Taxes on movable assets such as vehicles differ from those on land.

Where does movable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb movere, which simply meant 'to move' or 'to set in motion'. From the related Latin movere stem, Medieval Latin formed movabilis, describing something that can be shifted from its place. English took the word in during the 1300s by way of Old French, where it appeared as moeble or muable, and it settled in as an adjective for anything not fixed in position. The same movere root feeds a whole family of familiar English words, including motion, motive, remove, and even the financial term mobile. The spelling trap is the dropped final 'e' of 'move': because the suffix '-able' begins with a vowel, standard usage drops the e to give 'movable', though the variant 'moveable' that keeps the e has long survived alongside it.

How the word is built

• mov- (from Latin movere: to move)
• -able (capable of being)