Digestible

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /daɪˈdʒɛstəbəɫ/

Definitions

1. Able to be broken down and absorbed by the body's digestive system
2. Can be processed by the stomach and intestines for nutritional use
3. Suitable for digestion and assimilation within an organism's body

Etymology: "Digestible" is a straightforward formation: it combines "digest," which came into English from Latin "digestus," the past participle of "digerere" ("to divide, distribute, or arrange"), with the suffix "-ible," meaning "able to be" or "capable of being." The Latin root sense of separating and sorting out is easy to lose sight of today, but it explains why "digest" once described arranging things in order before it came to mean breaking food down in the body. The word arrived in English by way of Old French "digestible," which carried the same combination of stem and suffix into the language. Its core meaning stayed close to the physical process: something that can be broken down and absorbed by the body. Over time the adjective also came to be used figuratively, for ideas or information that can be taken in and understood without strain.

Synonyms: assimilable, edible

Antonyms: indigestible