a. Also 5 ondirstandabille. [f. prec. + -ABLE.]
1. That can be understood; intelligible.
c. 1475. Cath. Angl., 260/1 (MS. A). Ondirstandabille, jntelligibilis.
1577. Holinshed, Chron., II. 735/1. Their language was vnknowne, and not vnderstandable to any man that coulde bee brought to talke with them.
1584. R. Scot, Discov. Witchcr., XII. xxi. 228. Whether the words of the charme be understandable or not, it skilleth not.
1625. A. Gill, Sacr. Philos., Pref. Faith is a supplie of reason in things understandable, as the imagination is of sight in things that are visible.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Baptism, 82. Otherwise we might pervert all Scripture, and none of it would be understandable.
a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (1851), II. 294. This vncouth act, scarss wnderstandabill, bred gryte feir and perturbatioun.
1799. Southey, in Life (1850), II. 34. I suffer a good deal from illness, and in a way hardly understandable by those in health.
1832. Examiner, 84/2. Putting the law in a readable and understandable shape.
1870. Ruskin, Lect. Art (1875), 73. There are two of the Puritans, whose work if I can succeed in making clearly understandable to you…, it is all I need care to do.
† 2. Able to understand; capable of understanding.
1382. Wyclif, Ecclus. iii. 32. The wis herte and vnderstandable shal abstenen hymself from synnes.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, vi. 93. Theodorus … hath termed them, the substantiall Vnderstanding, the Vnderstandable substance, and the Fountayne of Soules.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, IV. 197. The daughters of those mothers … are forward and understandable of womens matters, sooner than other children.
Hence Understandableness.
Also, in recent use, understandably adv.
1656. trans. T. White’s Peripat. Inst., 198. The Understandablenesse of a thing, or the quiddity, the whatnesse.
1894. Mildred Cabell Watkins, American Literature, Pref. 3. In this volume the story of American literature is told to young Americans, briefly and understandably.
