Soluble

How to spell soluble

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce soluble

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does soluble mean?

1. adjectiveCapable of being dissolved, especially in a liquid such as water.
2. adjectiveCapable of being solved or explained, as a problem or difficulty.

Soluble in a sentence

• The tablets are soluble, so they break down quickly in a glass of water.

• The engineers agreed the fault was soluble once they traced the wiring.

• Vitamin C is soluble in water and is not stored by the body for long.

• Every dispute in the report was treated as a soluble matter rather than a permanent obstacle.

Where does soluble come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin solubilis, meaning 'able to be loosened or dissolved', which was built on the verb solvere, 'to loosen, release, or untie'. That same verb solvere gave English a whole family of related words, including 'solve', 'dissolve', 'solution', and 'solvent', all of which carry the underlying idea of loosening something apart. Soluble entered English in the late 1300s by way of Old French, at first in medical and scientific contexts describing substances that could be broken down in liquid. The spelling preserves the Latin form: notice it ends in -uble, not -able, because it descends from solubilis rather than from a native English root. Remembering that solu- echoes 'solution' and 'solvent' is the easiest way to keep the tricky -uble ending in place.

How the word is built

• solu- (from Latin solvere: to loosen, dissolve)
• -ble (able to be)