Is "drawable" a correct word?

Question

In French, we have the word "dessinable" which is an adjective for something that can be "dessiné" or in English that can be drawn.

However, when I search the term "drawable" in Cambridge dictionary I don't find any input. Same for "drawnable"

Surprisingly, on Google, my result for drawable is:

A Drawable is a general abstraction for "something that can be drawn."
Most often you will deal with Drawable as the type of resource retrieved for drawing things to the screen

With the part "something that can be drawn" matching the adjective that I'm looking for but the website is related to a Java Class Object for Android which is quite restricted to programming langages!

Does English have not a word for "something that can be drawn"?

Answer 1

English is fairly flexible and open to the creation of 'new' words and compound words from familiar prefixes and suffixes, "-able" being one such example.

A Google search finds quite a lot of results for "drawable", some of which refer to its use in technical jargon, but while it may not have been inducted in dictionaries like Cambridge, it has made its way into the Free Dictionary with the definition "capable of being drawn". I can confirm that, upon reading the word, this is the meaning that it conveyed to me.

Caution should be applied when creating non-dictionary words this way - not all words would take this suffix and make sense; also, there may be existing words accepted into the dictionary that would negate the need for a 'new' one. For example, "tasteable" sounds ridiculous, as everything would be capable of being tasted. Likewise, "toleratable" would be incorrect as we have the word "tolerable".

Also note that the perceived meaning of 'drawable' may not be all that your French equivalent means. For example, if someone was described as "kissable", dictionaries define this as "inviting kissing through being lovable or physically attractive", so that particular word means more than just "capable" of being kissed, but not every word with the -able suffix carries this meaning - most just mean that something is possible. If you are looking for a word to say that something is so aesthetically pleasing it 'invites' you to want to draw it, then 'drawable' may not convey this.

Answer 2

Yes, 'drawable' is a correct and legitimate word

I don't understand why you can't use drawable to mean 'something that can be drawn'. Perhaps it's just its unlookupability (or unlookupable-ness) or maddey-uppy-ness, or its freakiness or unprecedentedness or even its unapproachableness, but don't let those factors stop you from using 'drawable'.

Dictionaries don't make words; people do! It doesn't have to be in dictionaries for it to be a correct and legitimate word. You can make up any word so long as it's understandable. Also as tchrist said in one of his answers: 'No dictionary can ever tell you something is not a word!'.

It's Modern English and you can adjectivise just about any verb because most verbs in Modern English are adjectivisable. The suffix -able is a highly productive suffix in Modern English and is appendable to an enormous number of words (usually verbs).

In his English suffixes: Stress-assignment properties, productivity, selection and combinatorial processes, Ives Trevian says that -able 'has yielded a considerable number of adjectives endowed with the senses “capable of, deserving of, likely to or tending to"'. He goes on to say that able-ise-able¹ verbs are chiefly transitive. Note, however, that it is appended to the infinitive form, so it should be draw + -able, not *drawn + -able. Also see envisageable, which is not present in any dictionary, but is still correct and understandable.

Moreover, it can have different meanings, depending on the context as FumbleFingers pointed out in a comment beneath the question: Besides drawable = capable of being sketched / represented pictorially, there's the sense involved in drawable funds - money held in a bank account or similar, which can be [with]drawn and spent. Not to mention drawable wire, with various senses centring on draw = pull [tight], as in drawstrings.

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1. Able-ise-able isn't present in any dictionary, I just made it up to demonstrate that you can able-ise (or ableify) a large number of verbs. Also note that ableisation only works well with verbs. -ise is a verbifying suffix and the suffix -able is immediately attachable to it:
   • able + ise -> able-ise
   • able-ise + able -> able-ise-able

Answer 3

A search in Google Ngram confirms it is in use, and has been since at least the mid 1800s. Here is just one example: Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society - Volume 1.

Note that while in the reference given, the meaning of the root, “draw”, is to sketch or make a representation with pen or pencil on paper, etc, there are at least two other meanings of draw which some of the other Ngram hits showed.

One is the pulling of metal through a hole in a die to make wire; the other is the taking of some money from a bank or other such account — e.g. ”I will draw down the loan to tomorrow, so we should have the cash available by close of business.” In both of those meanings, the derivative “drawable” is also a valid word.