explicable, a.
(ˈɛksplɪkəb(ə)l)
[ad. L. explicābilis, f. explicāre to explicate.]
That may be explicated or explained; that admits of being cleared of difficulty, or of being accounted for.
| 1556 J. Heywood Spider & F. lxiv. 82 All parts of best wit had bene vnable To catch, kepe, and make, thacount explicable. 1578 Banister Hist. Man viii. 102 How the sight is made..is not with facilitie explicable. 1624 Fisher in F. White Reply Fisher 266 This Text being thus cleerely explicable. 1660 Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. i. (1682) 12 That notion by which it seems likely that most if not all of them [experiments] will prove explicable. 1783 Burke Rep. Affairs India Wks. XI. 300 It is not explicable..why the Nabob..could not have equally given them [bills] in discharge of the debt. 1804 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. II. 229 The word Coning or king, and the word Tascio, purse or scrip, are as explicable in Gothic as in Welsh. 1877 Owen in Wellesley's Disp. p. xxxi, His apparently harsh conduct..is..mainly explicable on this ground. |
† b. Of an equation: Solvable. Obs.
| 1694 E. Halley Roots Equat. in Misc. Cur. (1708) II. 84 The Equation proposed, is not explicable by any other Root. |
Hence ˈexplicableness, the quality of being explicable.
| 1727 in Bailey vol. II; and in mod. Dicts. |
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Add: explicably (ˈɛksplɪkəblɪ, ɛkˈsplɪk-) adv., in an explicable manner, so as to be explainable; understandably.
| 1961 V. H. H. Green Young Mr. Wesley vii. 134 It is possible that the Rector was increasingly and explicably unwilling to entrust Wesley with the care of pupils. 1986 Financial Times 25 Oct. (Weekend Suppl.) p. xxiii/1 The plot, complex enough to earn the title ‘problem play’, came over most explicably. |