Voidable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A legal agreement is considered capable of being nullified due to specific conditions or factors that allow for its invalidation
2. It denotes the possibility of a contract being invalidated based on particular circumstances or challenges that affect its validity
3. A legal contract can be annulled if certain conditions or challenges arise, which can influence its enforceability

Etymology: "Voidable" is a plain English compound: "void" plus the suffix "-able." "Void" traces back through Old French and Latin to a deep Indo-European root, but the path of "voidable" itself is simpler. The suffix "-able" came into English through Old French "-able," which descended from Latin "-abilis" and "-ābilis," meaning "capable of being" or "able to be" what the base word describes. Attaching it to "void" produced a term meaning "able to be made void." The legal sense is the one that matters here. In law, a voidable contract is not automatically null from the start; it stands unless one party chooses to cancel it, typically because of fraud, duress, or incapacity. The word therefore describes a contract that is valid until someone acts to annul it, which is why it differs from a "void" agreement, which never had legal force.

Synonyms: cancelable, invalidatable

Antonyms: valid, binding