knowable, a. (n.)
(ˈnəʊəb(ə)l)
[f. know v. + -able.]
That may be known; capable of being apprehended, understood, or ascertained.
| c 1449 Pecock Repr. i. viii. 41 Fyndeable and knoweable bi mannis resoun. 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 24 Pretending and presuming..to foreknow all things knowable. 1692 Locke Toleration iii. ix. Wks. 1727 II. 417 Who is it will say..that it is knowable, that any National Religion..is that only true Religion? 1748 Hartley Observ. Man i. iii. 349 Reasoning concerning the knowable Relations of unknown things. 1817 Bentham Parl. Ref. Catech. (1818) 26 The direction taken by the vote is in each instance known or knowable. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 69 A spiritual art whereby the possible is forsaken for the impossible—the knowable for the unknowable. 1874 L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) I. viii. 270 An insatiable curiosity as to all things knowable and unknowable. |
b. Capable of being recognized.
| 1654–66 Earl of Orrery Parthen. (1676) 582 We were hardly knowable to each other. 1687 Boyle Martyrd. Theodora i. (1703) 10 Not being knowable by his fair Mistress. 1737 Bracken Farriery Impr. (1757) II. 296 Counterfeits..are knowable in a very little time. 1806 W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. XXII. 29 The body..was too much hacked and disfigured to be knowable. |
B. absol. or n. A knowable thing; usually in pl. knowable things.
| 1661 Glanvill Van. Dogm. Pref. B j, I doubt not but the opinionative resolver, thinks all these easie Knowables. 1725 Watts Logic i. vi. §1 To distinguish well between knowables and unknowables. |
Hence knowaˈbility, ˈknowableness, the quality of being knowable.
| 1660 N. Ingelo Bentivolio & Urania i. (1682) 162 God is the most Knowable and most Lovely Thing in the world; excess of Knowableness following the Greatness of his Essence. 1679 J. Goodman Penitent Pardoned i. iii. (1713) 58 Respect is had to the knowledge or knowableness of that rule. 1865 Mill Exam. Hamilton 48 The argument is only tenable as against the knowability and the possible existence of..‘The Infinite’ and ‘The Absolute’. 1872 Contemp. Rev. XX. 828 Not the unknowability, but the knowability of his ‘ultimate scientific ideas’. 1883 A. Barratt Phys. Metempiric 172 Without ideas there is no perception, no knowableness. |