a. (sb.) [f. KNOW v. + -ABLE.] That may be known; capable of being apprehended, understood or ascertained.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., I. viii. 41. Fyndeable and knoweable bi mannis resoun.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 24. Pretending and presuming … to foreknow all things knowable.
1692. Locke, Toleration, III. ix. Wks. 1727, II. 417. Who is it will say … that it is knowable, that any National Religion … is that only true Religion?
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. iii. 349. Reasoning concerning the knowable Relations of unknown things.
1817. Bentham, Parl. Ref. Catech. (1818), 26. The direction taken by the vote is in each instance known or knowable.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), I. 69. A spiritual art whereby the possible is forsaken for the impossible—the knowable for the unknowable.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), I. viii. 270. An insatiable curiosity as to all things knowable and unknowable.
b. Capable of being recognized.
1654–66. Earl Orrery, Parthen. (1676), 582. We were hardly knowable to each other.
1687. Boyle, Martyrd. Theodora, i. (1703), 10. Not being knowable by his fair Mistress.
1737. Bracken, Farriery Impr. (1740), II. 285. Counterfeits … are knowable in a little time.
1806. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., XXII. 29. The body … was too much hacked and disfigured to be knowable.
B. absol. or sb. A knowable thing; usually in pl. knowable things.
1661. Glanvill, Van. Dogm., Pref. B j. I doubt not but the opinionative resolver, thinks all these easie Knowables.
1725. Watts, Logic, I. vi. § 1. To distinguish well between knowables and unknowables.
Hence Knowability, Knowableness, the quality of being knowable.
1660. N. Ingelo, Bentivolio & Urania, I. (1682), 162. God is the most Knowable and most Lovely Thing in the world; excess of Knowableness following the Greatness of his Essence.
1679. J. Goodman, Penitent Pardoned, I. iii. (1713), 58. Respect is had to the knowledge or knowableness of that rule.
1865. Mill, Exam. Hamilton, 48. The argument is only tenable as against the knowability and the possible existence of … ‘The Infinite’ and ‘The Absolute.’
1872. Contemp. Rev., XX. 828. Not the unknowability, but the knowability of his ‘ultimate scientific ideas.’
1883. A. Barratt, Phys. Metempiric, 172. Without ideas there is no perception, no knowableness.
