a. [ad. L. explicābilis, f. explicāre to EXPLICATE.] That may be explicated or explained; that admits of being cleared of difficulty, or of being accounted for.
1556. J. Heywood, Spider & F., lxiv. 82. All parts of best wit had bene vnable To catch, kepe, and make, thacount explicable.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, VIII. 102. How the sight is made … is not with facilitie explicable.
1624. Fisher, in F. White, Repl. Fisher, 266. This Text being thus cleerely explicable.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., i. (1682), 12. That notion by which it seems likely that most if not all of them [experiments] will prove explicable.
1783. Burke, Rep. Affairs India, Wks. XI. 300. It is not explicable … why the Nabob … could not have equally given them [bills] in discharge of the debt.
1804. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., II. 229. The word Coning or king, and the word Tascio, purse or scrip, are as explicable in Gothic as in Welsh.
1877. Owen, in Wellesley’s Disp., p. xxxi. His apparently harsh conduct … is … mainly explicable on this ground.
† b. Of an equation: Solvable. Obs.
1694. E. Halley, Roots Equat., in Misc. Cur. (1708), II. 84. The Equation proposed, is not explicable by any other Root.
Hence Explicableness, the quality of being explicable.
1727. in Bailey, vol. II.; and in mod. Dicts.
