a. Also 6 contabul, 6–7 comptable, 7 -ible, compteable. [a. OF. contable, now comptable, f. conter, compter: see COUNT v. Often aphetic for ACCOUNTABLE.]
† 1. Liable to give an account or reckoning; answerable, responsible; = ACCOUNTABLE 1. Obs.
1495. Act 11 Hen. VII., c. 10 § 1. Severally countable for the porcions by theym severally receyved.
1529. S. Fish, Supplic. Beggers (1845), 2. The poore wyves must be countable to theym of every tenth eg.
1549. Latimer, 3rd Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (Arb.), 100. We are comptable to god, and so be they.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, III. x. (1632), 571. An honest man is not comptable for the vice and folly of his trade.
1678. Norris, Coll. Misc. (1699), 269. We are under an obligation … we are countable for them.
1828. Atherstone, Fall of Nineveh, II. 272. Who unto you hath made us comptible?
† b. Involving responsibility; to be accounted for. Obs.
1549. Latimer, 4th Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (Arb.), 105. Is it not a dygnitye wyth a charge? is it not comptable? I thynke it wylbe a chargeable dygnitye whan accompte shal be asked of it.
† c. Liable to answer to, sensitive to. Obs.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., I. v. 186. Good Beauties, let mee sustaine no scorne; I am very comptible, euen to the least sinister vsage.
2. Capable or proper to be counted or numbered; numerable.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., IV. iv. (1588), 452. If any person haue packed Fish in barrels, and haue mixed the countable Fish with the small Fish.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., Wks. (1862), 503/2. The evils … are very many, and almost countable with those which were hidden in the basket of Pandora.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. vii. § 64. Thirtie men of Armes, and other inferior Souldiers not countable.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., VII. i. They are countable by the thousand and the million.
b. Within countable degrees of kinship. Cf. COUNT v. 1 d. nonce-use.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. X. v. 631. A Prince of Orange countable kinsman to his Prussian Majesty.
