Payable

How to spell payable

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce payable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does payable mean?

1. adjectiveRequired to be paid, or able to be paid, often by a stated time or to a stated party.

Payable in a sentence

• The invoice is payable within thirty days of receipt.

• The cheque should be made payable to the landlord.

Where does payable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word joins the verb 'pay' with the adjective suffix '-able', which forms adjectives meaning 'able to be' or 'due to be' something. 'Pay' itself reached English in the 1200s through Old French 'payer', which came from the Latin verb 'pacare', meaning 'to pacify' or 'to appease'. That Latin verb grew from 'pax', the word for 'peace', because settling a debt was originally seen as a way of making peace with a creditor. So 'payable' literally carries the idea of an amount that can be settled to keep the peace. The spelling keeps the full 'pay' intact before '-able', which is why it is written 'payable' rather than dropping any letters, and the '-able' ending (not '-ible') is the part that occasionally trips writers up.

How the word is built

• pay (to give money owed)
• -able (adjective suffix: able or due to be)