Citatability

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or characteristic of being frequently or appropriately referenced or quoted in text or speech; the degree to which something merits citation as an authoritative or significant source; the extent to which content can be accurately attributed to its original origin
2. The attribute describing how often and suitably a statement, idea, or source is cited in various contexts; a measure of the importance or relevance that justifies formal acknowledgment; the capacity for being acknowledged as a credible or valuable reference point
3. The property indicating how well material is capable of being cited or referenced in documentation; the suitability of a work, fact, or statement to be used as evidence or support; the level of recognition a source receives through formal mentioning in scholarly or general discourse

Etymology: "Citatability" is a straightforward formation: the verb "cite" (from Latin "citare," to summon or set in motion, via Old French and Middle English) plus the suffix "-able," meaning capable of being, plus "-ity," which turns the adjective into a noun of quality. The result describes how well a source, passage or piece of work can be quoted as an authority. The word is a modern coinage rather than an old one. It belongs to the vocabulary of academic and scholarly publishing, where it became useful in discussing how readily a book, article or dataset can be referenced by other researchers. Its earliest uses date to the late twentieth century, and it is likely that it was coined on the model of "citable" and "citability," which were already in use. Because the formation is transparent, the word tells you its meaning directly: whether something is fit to be cited.

Synonyms: quotability, referability, citable nature

Antonyms: unquotability, nonreferability