Palpabilis

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. An adjective describing something that can be felt or touched, particularly when it is tangible and perceptible through physical sensation
2. Characterizing a quality or entity that is capable of being discerned by touch or awareness, making it evident or palpable
3. Referring to aspects or phenomena that are easily perceived or experienced physically, often in a clear and direct manner

Etymology: "Palpabilis" is the Late Latin adjective from which English "palpable" descends, built from "palpare," to touch or stroke gently, plus the suffix "-bilis," meaning "able to be." The Latin verb has a fairly plain history: it is related to "palma," the palm of the hand, so the word's core idea is literally something you can feel with the hand. Medieval Latin writers used it in that physical sense, and the word did not come to mean "obvious" until much later. English took the word in the 1500s, in the form "palpable," and from the start it carried both senses at once. A palpable bump under the skin could be felt by a doctor's fingers, and a palpable lie was one so clear that it could be grasped without effort. The figurative use, meaning "plainly evident," became the dominant one in ordinary speech, so that today few people reading "a palpable sense of relief" think of touch at all.

Synonyms: palpable, tangible, detectable

Antonyms: imperceptible, intangible, invisible