Taxable

How to spell taxable

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce taxable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does taxable mean?

1. adjectiveLiable to have tax charged on it by a government.

Taxable in a sentence

• The accountant explained which parts of the bonus were taxable.

• Interest earned on the savings account is fully taxable.

Where does taxable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word tax came into English in the early 1300s from the Old French taxer, which in turn rested on the Latin verb taxare, meaning 'to assess, to handle, or to appraise'. That Latin verb was a frequentative of tangere, meaning 'to touch', so the original idea was something like 'to touch repeatedly' and therefore 'to estimate the worth of'. The familiar adjective ending -able comes from the Latin -abilis, signalling that something is capable of, or liable to, the action of the root, so taxable literally means 'able to be taxed'. The adjective itself developed in English once tax was firmly settled as both noun and verb, and it has long been a fixture of financial and legal writing. The spelling is fairly forgiving: the single x and the plain -able ending carry the whole word without any hidden doubled letters.

How the word is built

• tax (charge levied by government)
• -able (capable of, liable to)