forgivableadj.
/fəˈɡɪvəbl/, U.S. /fərˈɡɪvəb(ə)l/ That may be forgiven, pardonable, excusable.
ΚΠ
1550 H. Latimer Moste Faithfull Serm. before Kynges Maiestye sig. Eviv An vnexcusable synne, yet to him that wyll trulye repente, it is forgeueable.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Pardonnable..forgiueable.
1821 S. T. Coleridge Lett., Conversat., & Recoll. II. xxiii. 39 A neglect of this kind may be forgiveable, but it is utterly inexcusable.
1872 M. Collins Princess Clarice I. ix. 139 To know one's own dulness ought to make it forgiveable.
Derivatives
forˈgivableness n. the quality of being forgivable.
ΚΠ
1898 Expositor Aug. 105 When general unbelief prevails in the forgivableness of transgression, it is a truth worth proclaiming.
1926 Spectator 29 May 917/2 The quality which distinguishes his great prototype Pepys, we mean the quality of forgivableness.
forˈgivably adv. in a manner that is excusable or deserves forgiveness.
ΚΠ
1926 H. W. Phillips Mod. Foreign Exch. 31 Then came the reaction from the strain and privation of the war, expressing itself quite forgivably in an orgy of spending.
1927 Sunday Times 13 Mar. 6/4 [The part] was quite ludicrously, if forgivably, presented by a substitute.
1968 Times Lit. Suppl. 2 May 460/3 ‘Voices’..forgivably crowd the earlier note-books.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1897; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1550