Refrigerable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Capable of being cooled or frozen for preservation or storage
2. Suitable for being kept at low temperatures to maintain freshness or prevent spoilage
3. Describing items that can be placed in a cooling environment without losing quality or safety

Etymology: "Refrigerable" is a plain formation: the verb "refrigerate" with the suffix "-able," meaning capable of being refrigerated. The verb "refrigerate" comes from Latin "refrigerare," built from "re-," an intensifying prefix, and "frigerare," to make cold, which descends from "frigus," cold. Latin "refrigerare" meant to cool down or refresh, and that sense of refreshment survives in the older English verb "refrigerate," which was used for cooling and restoring people and things long before it came to mean chilling food. The adjective's meaning follows from that verb. "-able" attaches to a verb to mean that it can be done to something, so a refrigerable item is one that can be kept cold. The word's sense is therefore narrow and practical: it describes foods, medicines, or goods that tolerate or require chilling, and it is usually used in commercial, scientific, or logistical contexts.

Synonyms: chillable, coolable, freezable, frostable, preservable