Word.ws English Dictionary

potable

Syllables: pot·a·ble/ˈpəʊtəbəl/US/ˈpoʊtəbəl/

potable adjective: good for drinking without fear of waterborne disease or poisoning.

Adjective

potable (comparative more potable, superlative most potable)

  1. (formal) Good for drinking without fear of waterborne disease or poisoning.
    • potable water
    • The water from this river should not be considered potable without disinfection: you may be OK if you drink it raw, but you're gambling if you do so.

Noun

potable (plural potables)

  1. Any drinkable liquid; a beverage.
    • When solar beams / Parch thirsty human veins, the damask'd meads, / Unforc'd display ten thousand painted flow'rs / Useful in potables.1708, [John Philips], “(please specify the page)”, in Cyder. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], →OCLC

potable meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

potable in Hindi

good for drinking — see also drinkable
पेय pey

potable in Urdu

پینے کے قابل

potable in Bengali

পানযোগ্য, পানের উপযুক্ত

potable in Kannada

ಕುಡಿಯುವ, ಕುಡಿಯಬಲ್ಲ
More languagesFewer languages
potable in Arabic
صالِحٌ لِلشُّرْب
potable in Persian
آشامیدنی âšâmidani

Synonyms of potable

Forms of potable

Adjective
comparativemore potable
superlativemost potable
Noun
pluralpotables

Origin of potable

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English potable (“drinkable, potable”), from Middle French, Old French potable (modern French potable (“drinkable, potable”)), and from its etymon Late Latin pōtābilis (“drinkable, potable”), from Latin pōtāre (“to drink”) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives indicating a capacity or worth of being acted upon). Pōtāre is the present active infinitive of pōtō (“to drink”), from Proto-Italic *pōtos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₃- (“to drink”). The English word is cognate with Catalan potable, Italian potabile, Spanish potable. The noun is derived from the adjective.

Words formed from potable

Questions about potable

What does potable mean?
Potable means good for drinking without fear of waterborne disease or poisoning.
What is potable in Hindi?
Potable in Hindi is पेय (pey). See Potable meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is potable?
Potable can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce potable?
Potable is pronounced /ˈpəʊtəbəl/ (UK).

Words near potable in the dictionary

  1. potabilized
  2. potabilizer
  3. potabilizers
  4. potabilizes
  5. potabilizing
  6. potable
  7. potable gold
  8. potableness
  9. potables
  10. potadromous
  11. potage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: potable (page history and authors); potable (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); potable (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); potable (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-potable1.wav.

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