Sinkability

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or capability of being able to submerge in water
2. the extent to which an object is able to descend below the surface of a liquid
3. a measure of how readily something will go to the bottom when placed in water

Etymology: Sinkability is a plain English construction: the adjective "sinkable" (able to be sunk, or liable to sink) plus the suffix "-ability," which turns an adjective into a noun meaning the quality or degree of being that thing. The base "sink" is Old English "sincan," and the "-able" suffix came into English through Old French from Latin "-abilis," meaning "able to be." Combining the two gives a noun for how readily something goes under. The word is largely a modern formation. Its meaning is set by its base: "sinkable" is attested in English as the capacity of an object to be sunk, most often in naval and shipbuilding contexts, and the noun grew from that usage. Because "-ability" can be attached to almost any adjective ending in "-able," the noun appears in technical and everyday writing wherever a sinking tendency needs to be named, while dictionaries often treat it as a derived form rather than a word with its own separate history.

Synonyms: submersibility, sinking potential

Antonyms: buoyancy, floatability, floability, unsinkability