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Comments on How did “-able” semantically shift to mean “requiring”?

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How did “-able” semantically shift to mean “requiring”?

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Etymonline on "-able" doesn't expound the origin of "requiring".

-able

common termination and word-forming element of English adjectives (typically based on verbs) and generally adding a notion of "capable of; allowed; worthy of; requiring; to be ______ed," sometimes "full of, causing," from French -able and directly from Latin -abilis. It is properly -ble, from Latin -bilis (the vowel being generally from the stem ending of the verb being suffixed), and it represents PIE *-tro, a suffix used to form nouns of instrument, cognate with the second syllables of English rudder and saddle (n.).

For example, "payABLE" literally means ABLE to pay. Ability differs from requirement. How did "payable" semantically shift to meaning 1 below?

  1. (of money) required to be paid; due.

  2. Able to be paid.

payables

Debts owed by a business; liabilities.

payable (adj.) on Etymonline

late 14c., paiable, "to be paid, that can be or is to be paid,"
from pay (v.) + -able or from Old French paiable. From late 13c. as a surname, from the Old French word in its other sense, "of good quality."

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General comments (2 comments)
General comments
msh210‭ wrote almost 4 years ago

I question your premise that "[l]iterally, 'payABLE' means ABLE to pay". Although the -able suffix has that meaning in some words, it more often means "able to be [verb]ed", as in pronounceable, edible, tradable, readable, and many more.

PSTH‭ wrote almost 4 years ago

@msh210 You may be correct, but I can ask the same question for "able to be [verb]ed". Ability to be paid doesn't mean requirement to be paid. So "payable" did shift semantically.