personable, a.
(ˈpɜːsənəb(ə)l)
[f. person n. + -able: cf. 16th c. F. personnable.]
1. Having a well-formed person or body; well-made, handsome; good-looking, comely, presentable. (Now chiefly in literary use.)
| c 1430 Syr Gener. (Roxb.) 1552 His bodie so personable and plesaunt, So feir and so wel y-wroght. 1540–1 Elyot Image Gov. 102 One woman..hath manie children, of theym some be fayre and personable, some ill fauoured and croked. 1622 S. Ward Life of Faith in Death (1627) 69 The most personable Creature that euer the Sunne saw. 1723 Swift Cook Maid's Lett. Wks. 1755 III. ii. 205 My master is a personable man, and not a spindle-shank'd hoddy-doddy. 1815 Sporting Mag. XLV. 79 She was..too personable and attractive a nymph to be without a swain. 1890 Besant Armorel of Lyonesse i. vi, Certainly, he was a personable young man. |
† 2. Law. Having the status of a legal person (person 6), and as such competent to maintain a plea in court, or to take anything granted or given. Obs.
| 1544 tr. Littleton's Tenures 68 Whan he is made abbot he is as a man personable [Littleton edd. 1481–1530 vn home ou person; ed. 1557 parsonable] in the lawe, alonly to purchase and to haue landes and tenementes..to the vse of his house, & nat to his owne proper vse. 1607 Cowell Interpr. s.v., The tenent pleaded that the wife was an alien borne in Portingall... The plaintife saith: shee was made personable by Parlament, that is, as the Ciuilians would speake it, habere personam standi in iudicio. Personable is also as much, as to be of capacitie to take any thing graunted or giuen. Ibid. s.v. Personal, The demaundant was judged personable to maintaine this action. 1660 R. Sheringham King's Suprem. vii. (1682) 68 All agreed that the King was Personable, and discharged from all attainder in the very act that he took the Kingdom upon him. |
† 3. = personal. Obs.
| 1632 Virginia Stat. (1823) I. 172 Exempted from theire personable service in the warrs. |
Hence ˈpersonableness, personal handsomeness.
| 1604 T. Wright Passions v. iv. 223 An apt figure, and personablenes of body. 1654 R. Codrington tr. Iustine i. 21 Darius besides his personableness and his vertue, was of neer relation in blood to the ancient Kings. c 1815 Jane Austen Persuasion iii, I know no other set of men but what lose something of their personableness when they cease to be quite young. |