a. [f. WORK v. + -ABLE.]
1. Of substances or materials: That can be worked, fashioned or manipulated for use; said also of the state in which they are capable of being worked.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 139. As the potter most connyngly doth cast his pottes whan his claye is softe and workable.
1629. Jackson, Creed, VI. II. ix. § 1. Workable or fashionable unto any set forme.
1709. T. Robinson, Nat. Hist. Westmld., ix. 55. It is but eight or nine Inches thick. but the Roof and Covers being strong, it is a workable Coal.
1853. Pharmac. Jrnl., XIII. 118. They have come upon iron-ore and stone, coal and fireclay, of workable value.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., V. 299. Many heavy clays … might be made friable, and easily workable by a liberal application of lime.
1887. P. M’Neill, Blawearie, 90. The ‘ochre hole’ … had been found too wet to be workable.
2. That can be worked, managed, or conducted, as a contrivance, establishment, institution, etc.
1756. in Naval Chron. (1799), I. 267. I stood off…, to put the ship in a workable state.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, III. 367. Often making a circuit to secure good, workable gradients.
1859. W. Chadwick, Life De Foe, v. 272. Each of those hands was well furnished with a good workable hedging-bill.
1881. Times, 29 Nov., 6/5. Then only workable boat of the Lord Hood, manned by the mate and two men, proceeded to the wreck.
1881. Miss Braddon, Asphodel, xii. There’s not one of ’em knows how to plan a good workable hot-house.
1901. Daily News, 28 Feb., 9/1. To realise how much had been done to make the hospital a really workable place.
b. of a plan, system, scheme, or the like.
1865. Mill, Repr. Govt. (ed. 3), 63/1. Assuming the plan to be workable.
1878. Bayne, Purit. Rev., xi. 445. A permanently workable, broadly comprehensive ecclesiastical scheme.
3. Capable of working. rare.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, II. 358. Very nearly seven millions of wives and children of a workable age still unoccupied.
Hence Workableness, workability.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., Contents p. viii. Tried the workableness of the Rock.
1874. Morley, Compromise, i. 2. The immediate and universal workableness of a policy.
