conversable

conversable

English

Alternative forms

• conversible

Etymology

converse +‎ -able

Adjective

conversable (comparative more conversable, superlative most conversable)

1. (of people) Able and inclined to engage in conversation.

   Synonyms: affable, agreeable, approachable, genial, sociable

   • 1655, Margaret Cavendish, The Worlds Olio, London: J. Martin and J. Allestrye, Book 2, Part 2, p. 110,

     It is proper for a Gentleman […] to be Civil, and Conversible in Discourse, to know Men and Manners.

   • 1742, David Hume, “Of Essay-Writing” in Essays Moral and Political,

     The elegant Part of mankind […] may be divided into the learned and conversible. […] The conversible World join to a sociable Disposition, and a Taste for Pleasure, an Inclination for the easier and more gentle Exercises of the Understanding,

   • 1792, anonymous, “To Warren Hastings, Esq.,” cited in a letter written by William Cowper to Harriett Hesketh dated 5 May, 1792, in The Life, and Posthumous Writings, of William Cowper, Esqr., Chichester, 2nd ed., 1803, p. 40,

     I knew thee young, and of a mind

     While young, humane, conversable, and kind,

   • 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, London: Kegan Paul, “The Monks,” p. 91,

     When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, a hearty conversible Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little room […]

   • 1957, T. H. White, The Master, New York: Putnam, Chapter 29, p. 225,

     He had a bottle of whisky in one hand, to make himself conversible.

   • 1965, John Fowles, The Magus, Boston: Little, Brown, Part 1, Chapter 8, p. 53,

     I had […] days when I ached for a conversable girl. The island women were […] dour and sallow-faced, and about as seducible as a Free Church congregation.

2. (of people, obsolete) Able to be conversed with.
   • 1728, Daniel Defoe, A System of Magick, London: Andrew Millar, Chapter 3, p. 89,

     […] it is not the invisible Devil that I am enquiring after, but an appearing conversible Daemon or Evil Spirit […] assuming human Shape, or at least Voice,

   • 1789, Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London: T. Payne and Son, Chapter 17, p. 309, footnote,

     […] a full-grown horse, or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversible animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old.

3. (of things, obsolete) Pertaining to, suited for or exhibiting conversation.

   Synonym: conversational

   • 1619, John Donne, Sermon 71 in LXXX Sermons, London: Richard Royston, 1640, p. 720,

     […] it were not hard to assigne many examples of men that have stolne a great measure of learning, and yet lived open and conversable lives, and never beene observed […] to have spent many houres in study

   • 1691, John Hartcliffe, A Treatise of Moral and Intellectual Virtues, London: C. Harper, p. 156,

     Of the Three Conversable VIRTUES […] The Virtues which adorn and recommend a Man in Conversation […]

   • 1780, Thomas Paine, The American Crisis No. 9, in The American Crisis, and a Letter to Sir Guy Carleton, London: Daniel Isaac Eaton, circa 1796, pp. 211-212,

     […] while you, remote from the scene of suffering, had nothing to lose, and as little to dread, the information reached you like a tale of antiquity, in which the distance of time defaces the conception, and changes the severest sorrows into conversable amusement.

   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 12, in Emma: […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II or III), London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, OCLC 1708336, page 210:

     The evening was quiet and conversible, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella,

Anagrams

• conservable