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honourable. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
honourable, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
honourable in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle English honourable, from Old French honorable, honurable, from Latin honōrābilis, from honōrō (“I honour”); cognate with Italian onorabile, Spanish honorable. By surface analysis, honour + -able. In this sense, largely displaced Old English ārfæst.
Adjective
honourable (comparative more honourable, superlative most honourable)
- UK standard spelling of honorable.
1846, George Luxford, Edward Newman, The Phytologist: a popular botanical miscellany: Volume 2, Part 2, page 474:It was aptly said by Newton that "whatever is not deduced from facts must be regarded as hypothesis," but hypothesis appears to us a title too honourable for the crude guessings to which we allude.
Noun
honourable (plural honourables)
- UK standard spelling of honorable.
1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair , London: Bradbury and Evans , published 1848, →OCLC:So she invites her father and sister to a second day's dinner (if those sides, or ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't served yesterday, I'm d—d), and to meet City folks and littery men, and keeps the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself.