Collapsable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. able to be collapsed or folded for ease of storage and transport while permitting convenient reconfiguration or adjustment as needed
2. designed to collapse into a smaller form for efficiency in storage and transport, enabling practical reassembly for use
3. Capable of being folded down to a more compact state for easier handling or storage

Etymology: "Collapsable" is simply "collapse" with the suffix "-able" attached, meaning "able to be collapsed." The suffix has a long lineage of its own: it descends from Latin "-bilis," which was extended to "-abilis" and passed through Old French "-able" into Middle English, where it became a productive way to make adjectives from verbs. The base word "collapse" is the more interesting half, though it is not the source of the spelling debate. In practice, "collapsible" is the form most dictionaries prefer, because the suffix "-able" is usually attached to verbs ending in a silent "e" or to stems that keep their full form, and English speakers have tended to follow the Latin-derived "-ible" pattern for words built from Latin roots. "Collapsable" is the older-looking variant that English writers have used alongside it, and both forms appear in standard references.

Synonyms: foldable, retractable