doableadj.n.

c1443 R. Pecock Reule of Crysten Religioun (1927) 197 (MED) Euery moral good dede so circumstancionat, þat doom of resoun or feiþ concludiþ it not oonly to be doable but to be doon.

c1449 R. Pecock Repressor (1860) 37 A lawe..which is doable and not oonli knoweable.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Faisable,..doeable, effectable.

1653 T. Fuller Infants Advocate vi. 56 Our service of God ought to be early; deferre it not above eight dayes, that is, do it as soon as it is do-able without danger.

1705 C. Gildon Deist's Man. ii. 79 All those things of which we can form any Idea, are Possible, or Doable Things.

1843 T. Carlyle Past & Present i. iii. 23 A right noble instinct of what is doable and what is not doable never forsakes them.

1883 R. L. Stevenson Silverado Squatters 112 We..set ourselves to do what we could find do-able in our desert-island state.

1975 New Yorker 1 Dec. 62/1 What I was trying to do apparently isn't doable.

2004 Keyboard Feb. 30/2 Becoming a film composer is a doable thing, if you have the willingness to go the distance.

1849 R. S. Surtees Soapey Sponge's Sporting Tour xi, in New Monthly Mag. May 64 Every man has his weak or ‘do able’ point.

1843 T. Carlyle Past & Present iii. v. 214 The Doable, which reaches down to the World's centre.

1849 S. Smith Mother Country i. 32 What hinders but our own apathy, our own incapacity for the doable.

1913 A. W. Small Between Eras i. 29 It's a man's work to find the doable and do it.

1965 Economist 2 Jan. 31/1 He is a man interested in the practicable, the ‘do-able’ as the current phrase has it.

1983 S. J. Gould Hen's Teeth & Horse's Toes vii. 106 Science traffics in the doable.