quantifiableadj.n.
/ˈkwɒntᵻfʌɪəbl/, U.S. /ˈkwɑn(t)əˌfaɪəb(ə)l/ A. adj.
That may be conceived or treated as a quantity; that may be measured with regard to quantity.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > measurement > [adjective] > measurable
estimablec1460
measurable1565
dimensive1570
mensurablea1600
quantitive1626
commensurable1654
dimensurable1660
metesome1674
gaugeable1768
quantifiable1868
evaluable1880
dimensionable1884
the world > relative properties > quantity > [adjective] > having or considered with respect to quantity > that can be
quantifiable1868
1868 Lancet 8 Aug. 184/1 There is other science besides Physical Science, there are other data besides quantifiable data.
1883 A. Barratt Physical Metempiric p. xxv Those mutual relations of conscious centres which are measurable and quantifiable.
1928 A. A. Roback Psychol. of Char. (ed. 2) xiii. 217 Our character curves will..take the shape of a zig-zag, allowing for plus and minus relations in the most complicated ramification; and yet these relations are not really quantifiable.
1974 Sci. Amer. May 43/1 The redesign of approach roads and internal streets are destroying the evidence of the city's past at a quantifiable rate.
1999 J. Lloyd & E. Rees Come Together v. 136 The effect it's going to have on my life is barely quantifiable.
B. n.
1. A thing which may be quantified. Also (with the): that which may be quantified.
ΚΠ
1930 Language 6 6 Quantifier, a term which expresses any quantitative judgment. It measures or counts or grades a quantifiable.
1972 R. V. Bruce in G. H. Daniels Nineteenth-Century Amer. Sci. 63 In this age of uncertainties and revisionism, even the historians hug the quantifiable.
1991 Esquire (BNC) Apr. 126 Ali..has always found security and a skewed understanding of life in the quantifiable: amounts, calibrated outcomes, the creaking, reassuring machinery of living.
1994 E. C. Green AIDS & STDs in Afr. vi. 175 Results..as measured in such quantifiables as contraceptive sales.
2. Linguistics. In Ralph B. Long's terminology: = mass noun n. at mass n.2 Compounds 2. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > noun > [noun] > uncountable or mass noun
material noun1892
mass-word1914
uncountable1924
mass noun1933
singulare tantum1940
quantifiable1957
1957 R. B. Long in College Eng. 18 351/1 These are the quantifiables, such as furniture and milk and news.
1961 R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts ii. 39 Quantifiables such as courage, fun, pneumonia, milk, spaghetti, machinery, and furniture are not made plural, though it is true that some quantifiables have pluralizer status also.
1969 Names 17 112 Names of languages are begun with capital letters and yet are quantifiables rather than true proper nouns, as such sentences as Judy doesn't know much Spanish make clear.
Derivatives
ˈquantifiably adv.
ΚΠ
1951 Jrnl. Philos. 48 578 Scientific method should be restricted to a procedure which deliberately confines observation to data which can be quantifiably formulated.
2004 J. Fellowes Snobs x. 108 I could see..that I had risen quantifiably in his estimation.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1868