Word.ws English Dictionary

able bodied

able bodied is the alternative spelling of able-bodied.

Meaning of able-bodied

Adjective

able-bodied (comparative more able-bodied, superlative most able-bodied)

  1. Having a sound, strong body; physically competent; robust; fit for service.
    • A servant determinately idle, leaving his work, or an able-bodied vagrant, roaming the country without means of honest self-support and without seeking employment, was to be brought before the two nearest magistrates.1893, James Anthony Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada
  2. Not disabled; having no physical disability.
    • Unfair discrimination between the able-bodied and the disabled is illegal in many places.
    Synonyms:
    abled, enabled
    Antonyms:
    disabled
  3. Capable of performing all requisite duties as a seaman, specifically in the Royal Navy, a rating between leading and ordinary.

Questions about able bodied

What is able bodied the alternative spelling of?
Able bodied is the alternative spelling of able-bodied.

Words near able bodied in the dictionary

  1. ablauted
  2. ablauting
  3. ablauts
  4. ablaze
  5. able
  6. able bodied
  7. able rating
  8. able ratings
  9. able seaman
  10. able seamen
  11. able whackets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: able bodied (page history and authors); able-bodied (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “able bodied.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/able_bodied. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.