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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

potable.

Good for drinking without fear of waterborne disease or poisoning.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈpəʊtəbəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɒt-/Received-Pronunciation, nonstandard/ˈpoʊtəbəl/General-American/ˈpɑt-/General-American, nonstandard
  1. Good for drinking without fear of waterborne disease or poisoning.

    formal
    potable water
    The water from this river should not be considered potable without disinfection: you may be OK if you drink it raw, but you're gambling if you do so.
Where this word comes from

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English potable (“drinkable, potable”), from Middle French, Old French potable (modern French potable (“drinkable, potable”)), and from its etymon Late Latin pōtābilis (“drinkable, potable”), from Latin pōtāre (“to drink”) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives indicating a capacity or worth of being acted upon). Pōtāre is the present active infinitive of pōtō (“to drink”), from Proto-Italic *pōtos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₃- (“to drink”). The English word is cognate with Catalan potable, Italian potabile, Spanish potable. The noun is derived from the adjective.

noun/ˈpəʊtəbəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɒt-/Received-Pronunciation, nonstandard/ˈpoʊtəbəl/General-American/ˈpɑt-/General-American, nonstandard
  1. Any drinkable liquid; a beverage.

Where this word comes from

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English potable (“drinkable, potable”), from Middle French, Old French potable (modern French potable (“drinkable, potable”)), and from its etymon Late Latin pōtābilis (“drinkable, potable”), from Latin pōtāre (“to drink”) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives indicating a capacity or worth of being acted upon). Pōtāre is the present active infinitive of pōtō (“to drink”), from Proto-Italic *pōtos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₃- (“to drink”). The English word is cognate with Catalan potable, Italian potabile, Spanish potable. The noun is derived from the adjective.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.