Transferable

How to spell transferable

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce transferable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does transferable mean?

1. adjectiveAble to be passed, moved, or handed from one person, place, or owner to another.

Transferable in a sentence

• The season ticket is fully transferable to a colleague if you cannot attend.

• These pension benefits are transferable if you change employers.

Where does transferable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word is built from the Latin verb transferre, which combined trans, meaning 'across' or 'beyond', with ferre, meaning 'to carry or bear'. Quite literally it described carrying something from one place to another, and that physical sense of moving a load underlies every modern use, from passing a season ticket to another person to moving money between accounts. The verb 'transfer' arrived in English in the late 1300s through legal and Latin sources, and the adjective 'transferable' was formed later by adding the productive ending -able, meaning 'able to be'. The root ferre is remarkably busy in English, also giving us 'refer', 'prefer', 'infer', 'offer' and 'fertile', so the same idea of carrying turns up everywhere. The spelling trap sits in the middle and the end: writers must keep the single r of 'transfer' before the -able and resist doubling it, while also remembering the ending is -able rather than -ible.

How the word is built

• trans- (across)
• fer (from Latin ferre: to carry or bear)
• -able (capable of being)