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In French, we have the word "dessinable" which is an adjective for something that can be "dessiné" or in English that can be drawn.

However, when I search the term "drawable" in Cambridge dictionary I don't find any input. Same for "drawnable"

Surprisingly, on Google, my result for drawable is:

A Drawable is a general abstraction for "something that can be drawn."
Most often you will deal with Drawable as the type of resource retrieved for drawing things to the screen

With the part "something that can be drawn" matching the adjective that I'm looking for but the website is related to a Java Class Object for Android which is quite restricted to programming langages!

Does English have not a word for "something that can be drawn"?

Void
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JKHA
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  • https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/drawable-resource – Ronald Sole Feb 23 '21 at 15:45
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    Besides ***drawable = capable of being sketched / represented pictorially***, there's the sense involved in [***drawable funds***](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22drawable+funds%22) - money held in a bank account or similar, ***which can be [with]drawn** and spent.* Not to mention [***drawable wire***](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22drawable+wire%22), with various senses centring on ***draw = pull** [tight]*, as in ***drawstrings***. – FumbleFingers Feb 23 '21 at 16:32
  • As the other answers and comments say, this is a legitimate English word. It's hard to say out loud, which makes it a little awkward on the page too. – Ethan Bolker Feb 23 '21 at 18:28
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    Though in computer graphics, a drawable is usually an abstraction for something that can be drawn upon, such as a computer screen, a window on a display, or an image in memory. See e.g. documentation for the X Window system. – jamesqf Feb 24 '21 at 02:33
  • In Java, there's a long standing convention to name interfaces (vs. a class) by appending "-able" to the name. This is often done regardless of whether or not the word would be idomatic english. All of this is to say you'll probably often find "words" in that community that are nonstandard. – Kirk Woll Feb 24 '21 at 13:57
  • That usage long predates Java, @Kirk. Drawables have been a feature of the X11 protocol since, well, before it was X11. And the X Window System almost certainly didn't introduce the term. – Toby Speight Feb 24 '21 at 14:41
  • @TobySpeight, I was referring to the convention of adding that suffix to a large class of words that would otherwise not have them in ordinary english. Not about "drawable" specifically. – Kirk Woll Feb 24 '21 at 14:54
  • Oh, I see, @kirk. Yes, that is certainly "a thing" in Java! – Toby Speight Feb 24 '21 at 17:21
  • If you could think of anything "undrawable" the distinction might matter. Until then, what value could the idea have? – Robbie Goodwin Feb 24 '21 at 22:44
  • @RobbieGoodwin there are mathematical "curves" of infinite length that stay within a finite square. I think these might qualify as undrawable. – Peter Feb 25 '21 at 08:39
  • @Peter Go on then… show us the closest someone came to drawing such a thing, before concluding it was "undrawable"? If it's in a finite square, what's the problem? – Robbie Goodwin Feb 26 '21 at 22:24
  • @RobbieGoodwin, there are several examples in the wikipedia article on space filling curves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-filling_curve – Peter Feb 27 '21 at 10:16
  • @Peter Thanks and not in the context of this Question… – Robbie Goodwin Feb 28 '21 at 20:48

2 Answers2

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English is fairly flexible and open to the creation of 'new' words and compound words from familiar prefixes and suffixes, "-able" being one such example.

A Google search finds quite a lot of results for "drawable", some of which refer to its use in technical jargon, but while it may not have been inducted in dictionaries like Cambridge, it has made its way into the Free Dictionary with the definition "capable of being drawn". I can confirm that, upon reading the word, this is the meaning that it conveyed to me.

Caution should be applied when creating non-dictionary words this way - not all words would take this suffix and make sense; also, there may be existing words accepted into the dictionary that would negate the need for a 'new' one. For example, "tasteable" sounds ridiculous, as everything would be capable of being tasted. Likewise, "toleratable" would be incorrect as we have the word "tolerable".

Also note that the perceived meaning of 'drawable' may not be all that your French equivalent means. For example, if someone was described as "kissable", dictionaries define this as "inviting kissing through being lovable or physically attractive", so that particular word means more than just "capable" of being kissed, but not every word with the -able suffix carries this meaning - most just mean that something is possible. If you are looking for a word to say that something is so aesthetically pleasing it 'invites' you to want to draw it, then 'drawable' may not convey this.

Astralbee
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    I have to take issue with the last sentence. Eatable has a subtly different meaning to edible. Edible refers to something that's safe to eat - paper is edible, lead is not. Eatable refers to whether the item might actually be enjoyed when ingested. Paper is edible, but it's not particularly eatable. – Ben R. Feb 24 '21 at 09:51
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    @BenR. Thanks, I honestly didn't think 'eatable' was an accepted dictionary word. I've found a better example. – Astralbee Feb 24 '21 at 09:54
  • The reason why it found so many results is because it's a tech word in mobile-programming – Shaheen Zahedi Feb 24 '21 at 10:43
  • @ShaheenZahedi true, but I mentioned that it has found its way into open dictionaries with a standard English definition beyond that technical usage. I've updated my answer to reflect this, and added a link to one such dictionary. – Astralbee Feb 24 '21 at 10:55
  • @BenR. the word you're looking for is not eatable but palatable. – fectin Feb 24 '21 at 12:51
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    Nope, eatable is a perfectly acceptable word. It's effectively synonymous with palatable. – Ben R. Feb 24 '21 at 14:09
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    how is tasteable not a valid word? if I put a tiny amount of sugar in water, it is not tasteable. – qwr Feb 25 '21 at 01:22
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    I thought untasteablity was one of the metrics of being a good poison? You don't want something that tastes odd and will be spat out before being ingested. If you're an evil assassin that is... – user117065 Feb 25 '21 at 01:35
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    “Tasteable” is in the OED with the obvious meaning, non-obsolete, and with citations in that sense going back to the 16th century. – Michael Homer Feb 25 '21 at 02:24
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A search in Google Ngram confirms it is in use, and has been since at least the mid 1800s. Here is just one example: Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society - Volume 1.

Note that while in the reference given, the meaning of the root, “draw”, is to sketch or make a representation with pen or pencil on paper, etc, there are at least two other meanings of draw which some of the other Ngram hits showed.

One is the pulling of metal through a hole in a die to make wire; the other is the taking of some money from a bank or other such account — e.g. ”I will draw down the loan to tomorrow, so we should have the cash available by close of business.” In both of those meanings, the derivative “drawable” is also a valid word.

tkp
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