a. and sb. [ad. L. vendibilis, f. vendĕre to sell. So Sp. vendible, It. vendibile. Cf. VENDABLE a.]
A. adj. 1. Capable of being vended or sold; that may be disposed of by sale; saleable, marketable.
Freq. with more, most, etc., denoting the readiness with which a thing can be sold.
1382. Wyclif, 2 Macc. xi. 3. In to wynnynge of money,… by eche ȝeeris prestehode vendible, or able to be soold.
1530. in W. H. Turner, Select. Rec. Oxford (1880), 91. Wyne … alowed by hym to be good and vendyble.
1581. W. Stafford, Exam. Compl., ii. (1876), 37. They come not alwayes for our commodities, but sometimes to sell theirs heere, knowing it heere to be best vendible.
1633. Prynne, 1st Pt. Histriom., Ep. Ded. Play-books … being now more vendible than the choycest Sermons. Ibid., 905. They cannot therefore bee vendible because they are not valuable.
1679. in Gutch, Coll. Cur., I. 275. The University of Oxford, by their printing of Bibles, and other saleable books, will be enabled to go forward with those other less vendible.
1747. Hooson, Miner’s Dict., K iv b. This to make it vendible, is first knocked out with a Hammer, and the dead Stuff picked out as clean as may be.
1788. V. Knox, Winter Even., IX. iii. III. 232. They get rid of some commodity, not very vendible.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 980. In this way all the vendible coal becomes available.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 90/2. A thing made which is useful for its own sake, and vendible as such.
transf. 1581. Burghley, in D. Digges, Compl. Ambass. (1655), 394. He is altogether French and will seek to draw this King into France, where his life I fear will be vendible.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., I. i. 112. Silence is onely commendable In a neats tongue dri’d, and a maid not vendible.
b. = VENAL a.1 1 b and 1 c.
1579. Fenton, Guicciard., X. (1599), 427. Fauors and voyces being made vendible and corrupted, discords … haue bin kindled amongst themselues.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad. (1594), I. 377. So long as the places of judgement shall be vendible, and bestowed upon him that offereth most.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, III. 76. It is not our custome, to sell our curtesies as a vendible commodity.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low C. Wars, 788. In England and Germany Forces were levied and raised for both parties with a vendible faith.
1791. Burke, Wks. (1837), I. 566. It attached, under the royal government, to an innumerable multitude of places, real and nominal, that were vendible.
† c. Of persons: = VENAL a.1 2. Obs.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., 293. Environed he was with a multitude thronged together of vendible or sale souldiors.
1637–50. Row, Hist. Kirk (Wodrow Soc.), 424. Those were sellable, vendible men,… to be sold for money.
a. 1668. Lassels, Voy. Italy (1698), Pref. p. xxiii. I would not have him learn the custom of those vendible souls there, who … serve any prince for money.
† 2. Offered for sale; that may be bought or purchased. Obs.
1552. Huloet, Vendible, or whych maye be bought, mercalis, vendibilis.
1605. Willet, Hexapla Gen., 281. Lentils … was the vsuall food … commonly vendible in their tabernes.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 150. Houses, like our Tauernes. Where is vendible Wine.
1665. G. Havers, P. della Valle’s Trav. E. India, 144. He, not finding any [book] vendible therein, caus’d a small one to be purposely transcrib’d for me.
1756. Earl Chesterf. in Connoisseur, No. 107. I am so great an admirer of the fair sex, that I never let a little of their vendible writings escape me.
† 3. fig. Current, accepted, acceptable. Obs.
1642. Howell, For. Trav. (Arb.), 20. Certaine vulgar Phrases, Proverbs, and Complements, which are peculiar to the English, and not vendible or used in French.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., Wks. 1851, IV. 234. Let the foppish canonist with his fardel of matrimonial cases goe and be vendible where men bee so unhappy as to cheap’n him.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 16. 281. Some may still suspect all this to have been nothing else but a refinement and interpolation of Paganism,… or a kind of Mangonization of it, to render it more vendible and plausible.
B. sb. A thing admitting of being sold or offered for sale.
1681. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), II. 520. The prizes of all vendibles for the belly of man and horse were stuck up in public places. Ibid. (1691), Ath. Oxon. (1721), II. 384. It appears that the said Revolutions were occasion’d by the excessive Gabells laid upon common Vendibles.
1697. J. Potter, Antiq. Greece, I. xv. (1715), 83. In the Market, where they had the care of all Vendibles.
1821. Galt, Ann. Parish, xxix. The farmers … taking their vendibles to the neighbouring towns on the Tuesdays.
1905. Holman-Hunt, Pre-Raphaelism, I. 368. The gorgeous group of vendibles in the market.
Hence Vendibleness; Vendibly adv.
1563. Hyll, Art Garden. (1593), 20. The greater they do then abide, the vendiblier, or readier they will be to be solde.
1611. Cotgr., Venalité, venalitie, vendiblenesse; a being salable. Ibid., Venalement, vendibly, salably.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Vendibleness, Saleableness.
