amenable

English

Etymology

From French as if *amenable, from amener (“to bring or lead, fetch in or to”), from a- + mener (“to lead, conduct”), from Late Latin mināre (“to drive”), Latin deponent minārī (“to threaten, menace”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈmiːnəbəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈmɛn.ə.bəl/

Rhymes: -ɛnəbəl

Adjective

amenable (comparative more amenable, superlative most amenable)

1. Willing to respond to persuasion or suggestions.

   Synonyms: persuadable, agreeable

   Coordinate terms: (stronger and more negative) suggestible, gullible

2. Willing to comply; easily led.

   Synonyms: compliant, complaisant

   • 2020 August 4, Richard Conniff, “They may look goofy, but ostriches are nobody’s fool”, in National Geographic Magazine‎:

     The communal nature of ostriches may have made these birds more amenable to life in captivity.

3. Liable to be brought to account, to a charge or claim; responsible; accountable; answerable.
4. (law) Liable to the legal authority of (something).

   decisions of the Boards of Appeal are amenable to actions before the Court of Justice of the European Communities

5. (mathematics, of a group) Being a locally compact topological group carrying a kind of averaging operation on bounded functions that is invariant under translation by group elements.

Antonyms

• unamenable

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• “amenable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “amenable”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “amenable”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• beanmeal, meanable, nameable