Word.ws English Dictionary

papabile

/pəˈpɑːbɪleɪ/

papabile adjective: being among those likely to be elected pope.

Adjective

papabile (comparative more papabile, superlative most papabile)

  1. Being among those likely to be elected pope.
    • Vatican watchers have already anointed the Honduran prelate papabile or “popeable.”2001 February 20, May Ying Welsh, “Latin Cardinals hint at Church's future”, in CNN
    • All of this is creating a pre-conclave atmosphere. Vatican observers watch to see how each cardinal deputizing for the pope acts, and whether they are papabile (literally “pope-able,” or a potential candidate to be pope).2025 March 8, Christopher Lamb, “High anxiety and whispers of a conclave: How the Vatican is dealing with Pope Francis’ hospitalization”, in CNN

Noun

papabile (plural papabiles or papabili)

  1. A cardinal among those likely to be elected pope.

Forms of papabile

Adjective
comparativemore papabile
superlativemost papabile
Noun
pluralpapabiles
pluralpapabili

Origin of papabile

Borrowed from Italian papabile.

Questions about papabile

What does papabile mean?
Papabile means being among those likely to be elected pope.
What part of speech is papabile?
Papabile can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce papabile?
Papabile is pronounced /pəˈpɑːbɪleɪ/.

Words near papabile in the dictionary

  1. Papa Doc
  2. PAPA syndrome
  3. Papa Westray
  4. papa-
  5. papa-bear
  6. papabile
  7. papabiles
  8. papabili
  9. papability
  10. papable
  11. papables

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: papabile (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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