Word.ws English Dictionary

interoperable

interoperable adjective: (of a system or device) Able to communicate, and exchange data with another system or device.

Adjective

interoperable (not comparable)

  1. (of a system or device) Able to communicate, and exchange data with another system or device.
    • Patents exist as incentive for inventors to reveal the workings of their inventions; to receive a patent, you must provide the patent office with a functional description of your invention, which is then published. Even though others may not copy your invention during the patent period, they can...2020 September 7, Cory Doctorow, “IP”, in Locus Magazine
    • A person with a Gmail account can send messages to a person with a Yahoo account because email systems are interoperable.2022 October 13, Binyamin Appelbaum, “It Shouldn’t Matter So Much Whether Elon Musk Buys Twitter”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
  2. (especially) Operationally compatible, e.g. with other armed forces.
    • One of the key features associated with VLR [very light rail] vehicles is that they are not interoperable with main line trains. That is the domain of tram-trains.2025 July 23, Peter Plisner, “You say you want a revolution...”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 39

Origin of interoperable

From interoperate + -able; alternatively inter- + operable.

Words formed from interoperable

Questions about interoperable

What does interoperable mean?
Interoperable means (of a system or device) Able to communicate, and exchange data with another system or device.
What part of speech is interoperable?
Interoperable is an adjective.

Words near interoperable in the dictionary

  1. interonset
  2. interop
  3. interoparous
  4. interoperabilities
  5. interoperability
  6. interoperable
  7. interoperably
  8. interoperate
  9. interoperated
  10. interoperates
  11. interoperating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: interoperable (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.

Last updated:

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