Plantable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Able to be put in soil or suitable ground for growing plants
2. Suitable or ready for placing seeds or young plants in earth to grow
3. Describing something that can be established in the ground for cultivation

Etymology: "Plantable" is a simple formation: the verb "plant" with the suffix "-able," which turns a verb into an adjective meaning "capable of being" or "suitable for" the action. Here that means land or ground that can be set with seeds or young plants. "Plant" itself goes back to Old English "plante," a young shoot or cutting, borrowed from Latin "planta," meaning a sprout or slip, so the adjective carries that same notion of tender growing things into the soil. The suffix does the work. "-able" came into English through Old French "-able" from Latin "-abilis," and English has used it freely to form adjectives from verbs, so "plantable" follows the same pattern as words like "washable" or "readable." Because the formation is so productive, it reads as transparent to speakers, and its meaning follows directly from its parts.

Synonyms: sowable, cultivable