debatable, a.
(dɪˈbeɪtəb(ə)l)
Also 7–9 debateable.
[a. OF. debatable (Cotgr.), debattable, f. debat(t)-re + -able: med. (Anglo-)L. debatabilis.]
1. Admitting of debate or controversy; subject to dispute; questionable.
| 1581 Mulcaster Positions iii. (1887) 11 The difference of opinion is no proufe at all, that the matter is debatable. 1685 Lond. Gaz. No. 2031/2 A Committee for considering the debateable Elections. 1817 J. Scott Paris Revisit. (ed. 4) 201 Observations on certain debateable points. 1883 Froude Short Stud. IV. ii. i. 177 Doctrines, which degraded accepted truths into debatable opinions. |
2. esp. Said of land or territory, e.g. on the border of two countries and claimed by both: applied to lands on the borders of England and Scotland, esp. a tract between the Esk and Sark, claimed (before the Union) by both countries, and the scene of frequent contests.
| [1453, 1531–2 See batable.] 1492 in Rymer Fœdera XII. 467/2 Terras debatabiles ibidem adjacentes. 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) I. 162 Gret contentioun betwix the Scottis and Pichtis, for certane debaitabill landis, that lay betwix thair realmes. 1549 Compl. Scot. viii. 74 Neutral men, lyik to the ridars that dueillis on the debatabil landis. 1604 (title), A Booke of the survaie of the debatable and border lands. 1609 Skene Reg. Maj. 11 Quhither the defender hes any other land in the towne, quhere the debaitable land lyes, or nocht. 1777 Nicolson & Burn Hist. Westm. & Cumb. I. p. lxxii, The Debateable Land..became a further bone of contention between the two snarling parties. c 1800 K. White Lett. (1837) 338 The debateable ground of the Peloponnesians. 1820 Scott Abbot ii, The Græmes who then inhabited the Debateable Land. 1838 Thirlwall Greece III. 129 Guarding a debatable frontier. |
b. fig. Of regions of thought, etc.
| 1814 Chalmers Evid. Chr. Revel. i. 31 Christianity is now looked upon as debateable ground. 1870 Farrar Fam. Speech iv. (1873) 118 The..debateable lands of the separate linguistic kingdoms. |
† B. as n. The Debatable Land (on the border of England and Scotland: see 2 above); also pl. the residents on this land (sometimes debatablers).
| 1551 Edw. VI Lit. Rem. (Roxb.) II. 389 The lord Maxwell did upon malice to the English debatables overrun them. Ibid. 390 Then shal the Scottis wast their debatablers, and we ours. Ibid 407 The commissionars for the Debatable. 1568 in H. Campbell Love-Lett. Mary Q. Scots App. (1824) 15 The contraversy yerely arising by occasion of certain grounds upon the frontiers in the East Marches, commonly called the ‘Threap-land’, or ‘Debatable’. |