disciplinable (adj.)
mid-15c., "amenable to discipline by instruction or improvement by teaching," from Medieval Latin disciplinabilis "docile." Meaning "subject or liable to discipline or correction" is from 1870, from discipline + -able.
Entries linking to disciplinable
c. 1200, "penitential chastisement; punishment for the sake of correction," from Old French descepline "discipline, physical punishment; teaching; suffering; martyrdom" (11c., Modern French discipline) and directly from Latin disciplina "instruction given, teaching, learning, knowledge," also "object of instruction, knowledge, science, military discipline," from discipulus "pupil, student, follower" (see disciple (n.)).
The Latin word is glossed in Old English by þeodscipe. The meaning "treatment that corrects or punishes" is from the notion of "order necessary for instruction."
Meaning "branch of instruction or education" is first recorded late 14c. Meaning "system of rules and regulations" is from mid-14c. Meaning "military training" is from late 15c., via the notion of "training to follow orders and act in accordance with rules;" that of "orderly conduct as a result of training" is from c. 1500. Sense of "system by which the practice of a church is regulated, laws which bind the subjects of a church in their conduct" is from 1570s.
common termination and word-forming element of English adjectives (typically based on verbs) and generally adding a notion of "capable of; allowed; worthy of; requiring; to be ______ed," sometimes "full of, causing," from French -able and directly from Latin -abilis. It is properly -ble, from Latin -bilis (the vowel being generally from the stem ending of the verb being suffixed), and it represents PIE *-tro-, a suffix used to form nouns of instrument, cognate with the second syllables of English rudder and saddle (n.).
A living element in English, used in new formations from either Latin or native words (readable, bearable) and also with nouns (objectionable, peaceable). Sometimes with an active signification (suitable, capable), sometimes of neutral signification (durable, conformable). It has become very elastic in meaning, as in a reliable witness, a playable foul ball, perishable goods. A 17c. writer has cadaverable "mortal."
To take a single example in detail, no-one but a competent philologist can tell whether reasonable comes from the verb or the noun reason, nor whether its original sense was that can be reasoned out, or that can reason, or that can be reasoned with, or that has reason, or that listens to reason, or that is consistent with reason; the ordinary man knows only that it can now mean any of these, & justifiably bases on these & similar facts a generous view of the termination's capabilities; credible meaning for him worthy of credence, why should not reliable & dependable mean worthy of reliance & dependence? [Fowler]
In Latin, -abilis and -ibilis depended on the inflectional vowel of the verb. Hence the variant form -ible in Old French, Spanish, English. In English, -able tends to be used with native (and other non-Latin) words, -ible with words of obvious Latin origin (but there are exceptions). The Latin suffix is not etymologically connected with able, but it long has been popularly associated with it, and this probably has contributed to its vigor as a living suffix.
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updated on August 23, 2018
Dictionary entries near disciplinable
discernment
discharge
dischargeable
disciple
discipleship
disciplinable
disciplinant
disciplinarian
disciplinary
discipline
disclaim