penetrable

From Middle English penetrable, penytrable, from Old French penetrable, from Medieval Latin penetrābilis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛnətɹəbəl/

penetrable (comparative more penetrable, superlative most penetrable)

1. Capable of being penetrated, entered, or pierced.
   • 1867, George Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World:

     On the east the high mountain-chain of Zagros, penetrable only in one or two places, forms a barrier of the most marked character, and is beyond a doubt the natural limit for which we are looking.

2. (figuratively) Capable of being fully understood.
   • 1900, Arthur M. Mann, The Boer in Peace and War:

     A Boer may know you, but it will take you some time to know him, and when a certain stage in your acquaintance is reached, you may begin to wonder whether his real nature is penetrable at all.

   • 1996, Peter Carruthers, Peter K. Smith, Theories of Theories of Mind:

     A capacity is cognitively penetrable in this sense if that capacity is affected by the subject's knowledge or ignorance of the domain.

• impenetrable

• penetrableness
• penetrably

• “penetrable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• repentable

• IPA^(key): /peneˈtɾable/
• Rhymes: -able
• Syllabification: pe‧ne‧tra‧ble

penetrable m or f (masculine and feminine plural penetrables)

1. penetrable

• “penetrable”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), 23rd edition, Royal Spanish Academy, 2014 October 16