a. [f. FORD v. + -ABLE.] That may be forded.
1611. Florio, Vadásile, foardable, wadable.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, I. iii. § 9. Plinie placeth the Schenitæ upon Euphrates, where the same beginneth to be foordable, which is toward the border of Syria.
1724. De Foe, Mem. Cavalier (1840), 142. It was a little brook, fordable with ease.
1807. G. Chalmers, Caledonia, I. I. ii. 108, note. The river Clyde, from Douglas upwards, was, in those days fordable.
1886. Stevenson, Kidnapped, xiv. I stood in the rain, and shivered, and wondered what to do, till it occurred to me that perhaps the creek was fordable.
fig. 1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, Pref., B a. Hee found by Catesby, who sounded him, that he was not fordable.
1646. H. Lawrence, Of Our Communion and Warre with Angels, 176. The scriptures though deepe are foordable by those who are holy.
1710. Brown, trans. Lucian’s Lapithæ, or Drunken Feast, 16. Thou … art the most shallow, the most fordable Monster in the Universe, that a Man may take the depth of thee with a Barley-Corn.
Hence Fordableness.
1727. in Bailey, vol. II.
