conversable
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more conversable
form: most conversable
form: conversible
Etymology: From converse + -able.
Senses: examples: text: It is proper for a Gentleman […] to be Civil, and Conversible in Discourse, to know Men and Manners.
ref: 1655, Margaret Cavendish, The Worlds Olio, London: J. Martin and J. Allestrye, Book 2, Part 2, p. 110:
text: The elegant Part of mankind […] may be divided into the learned and conversible. […] The conversible World join to a sociable Disposition, and a Taste for Pleasure, an Inclination for the easier and more gentle Exercises of the Understanding,
ref: 1742, David Hume, “Of Essay-Writing”, in Essays Moral and Political:
text: 1792, anonymous, “To Warren Hastings, Esq.,” cited in a letter written by William Cowper to Harriett Hesketh dated 5 May, 1792, in The Life, and Posthumous Writings, of William Cowper, Esqr., Chichester, 2nd ed., 1803, p. 40,
I knew thee young, and of a mind
While young, humane, conversable, and kind,
text: When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, a hearty conversible Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little room […]
ref: 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Monks”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, London: Kegan Paul, page 91:
text: He had a bottle of whisky in one hand, to make himself conversible.
ref: 1957, T. H. White, chapter 29, in The Master, New York: Putnam, page 225:
text: I had […] days when I ached for a conversable girl. The island women were […] dour and sallow-faced, and about as seducible as a Free Church congregation.
ref: 1965, John Fowles, The Magus, Boston: Little, Brown, Part 1, Chapter 8, p. 53:
synonyms: affable
agreeable
approachable
genial
sociable
glosses: Able and inclined to engage in conversation.
raw_tags: of people
examples: text: […] it is not the invisible Devil that I am enquiring after, but an appearing conversible Daemon or Evil Spirit […] assuming human Shape, or at least Voice,
ref: 1728, Daniel Defoe, chapter 3, in A System of Magick, London: Andrew Millar, page 89:
text: […] a full-grown horse, or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversible animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old.
ref: 1789, Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London: T. Payne and Son, Chapter 17, p. 309, footnote:
glosses: Able to be conversed with.
raw_tags: of people
examples: text: 1619, John Donne, Sermon 71 in LXXX Sermons, London: Richard Royston, 1640, p. 720,
[…] it were not hard to assigne many examples of men that have stolne a great measure of learning, and yet lived open and conversable lives, and never beene observed […] to have spent many houres in study
text: 1691, John Hartcliffe, A Treatise of Moral and Intellectual Virtues, London: C. Harper, p. 156,
Of the Three Conversable VIRTUES […] The Virtues which adorn and recommend a Man in Conversation […]
text: 1780, Thomas Paine, The American Crisis No. 9, in The American Crisis, and a Letter to Sir Guy Carleton, London: Daniel Isaac Eaton, circa 1796, pp. 211-212,
[…] while you, remote from the scene of suffering, had nothing to lose, and as little to dread, the information reached you like a tale of antiquity, in which the distance of time defaces the conception, and changes the severest sorrows into conversable amusement.
text: The evening was quiet and conversible, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella,
ref: 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 12, in Emma: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 210:
synonyms: conversational
glosses: Pertaining to, suited for or exhibiting conversation.
raw_tags: of things
Derived terms: conversableness
conversably
inconversable
unconversable