desirablede‧sir‧a‧ble /dɪˈzaɪərəbəl $ -ˈzaɪr-/ ●●○ adjective 
The ability to speak a foreign language is highly desirable. a desirable neighborhood It is desirable that you should have some familiarity with computers. It is desirable to keep the cost as low as possible.2 literary sexually attractive: a desirable young woman—desirably adverb—desirability /dɪˌzaɪrəˈbɪləti $ -ˌzaɪr-/ noun [uncountable]
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- Oak Hills is one of the area's most desirable neighborhoods.
- Ray was still in good shape and far more desirable than most men his age.
- Although it is desirable for the clearinghouses to be able to distribute or lend material, it is not essential.
- Flats with shared front entrances are not particularly desirable either, even if they do have entry phones fitted.
- In sheer bulk of biomass, organisms without brains or even without central nervous systems far outnumber those possessing these desirable features.
- It is neither socially nor economically desirable that convicted employees should generally be dismissed.
- No international solutions with mud are possible, or indeed desirable.
- O.K. This is the desirable weight range for your health.
- Sometimes it is necessary and desirable to leave hand-drawn and handwritten input as it is.
- This latter proposition is not ideal as the more rampant plants will crowd out the less vigorous and often more desirable subjects.
Longman Language Activatorsomeone who is sexually attractive
sexually attractive to people, either because of your body, your good looks, or attractive personality: · Peter is strong, good looking, and very sexy.· The advertisement showed a sexy young woman in a short skirt standing beside a sports car.· Her flushed cheeks, wide eyes, and slightly opened mouth made her look sexy.
someone who is attractive has a personality or appearance that makes other people sexually attracted to them: · It's enough for me that my husband thinks I'm sexually attractive.attractive to: · I don't know what makes Jamie so attractive to women.find somebody attractive (=think they are attractive): · She's very nice but I don't really find her attractive.
someone's appearance, behaviour, or personality that makes them sexually attractive: · Tanya uses her sex appeal to get whatever she wants.have sex appeal: · Barry's a really nice guy, but he has absolutely no sex appeal.
formal someone who is desirable makes you feel sexually attracted to them: · Ray was still in good shape and far more desirable than most men his age.
a woman who is voluptuous has large breasts and an attractive, rounded body, so that men feel sexually attracted to her: · Everyone turned to look at Gordon and his voluptuous mistress as they entered the room.
written a woman who is alluring attracts men in a sexual way, because she seems to be exciting and a little mysterious: · Helene was an alluring beauty whom few men could resist.· She was encouraged to use her feminine charms, to be coy and alluring.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY The ability to speak a foreign language is highly desirable. It is desirable that you should have some familiarity with computers.COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
The ability to speak a foreign language is highly desirable. It is desirable that you should have some familiarity with computers.· It is a desirable property with a south-facing garden.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADVERB· It is also desirable to have the possibility of shifting staff between design and operational duties.· In the case of companies ambitious to succeed, scope for development and expansion was also desirable.· Homogeneity is also desirable in the meaning of lines and arrows.· It is also desirable that the sun should shine in the new room.· Shelter trees are also desirable, especially in the summer.
· A careful record, with corroboration, is always desirable in such extreme circumstances.· This may be achieved by correspondence, but a meeting may be necessary, and is almost always desirable.· Steel toe protection is needed if heavy loads are handled and ankle support is always desirable.
· Innovation is seen as desirable because it invariably increases efficiency, and makes for higher profits.· How did they come to see such jobs as desirable?· Diversity among opinions is as desirable as diversity among species.
· In other cases early appointment is clearly desirable so that the guardian can attend the first directions appointment.· Some of the new law, like the Gideon case, represented clearly desirable reform.· In addition to being consistent over time, it is clearly desirable that indicators used within a single year be consistent.
· As he grew to manhood, Vologsky had accepted that state of being as both normal and even desirable.· Actually, one-paragraph letters are fine, even desirable when appropriate.· Or that a comprehensive test ban might not be possible - even desirable - at some point in the future.· Illich asked whether such education was even desirable, let alone possible.· It is permissible, even desirable, to edit and rephrase the statement so that it is clear and well structured.· Unlike intarsia, it is not necessary and often not even desirable to wrap the two weaving yarns.· Freud claimed to be committed to science, and he thought a physiologically based psychology was possible, even desirable.
· Pure white cotton is, however, highly desirable for the evening.· Only 28 percent rated a video on-demand service as highly desirable.· Other authorities have held back before embarking on such highly desirable projects because of that uncertainty in the law.· Moreover, the news audience is a highly desirable one.· In general most of these clauses are not highly desirable in short form standard conditions.· Now it has just been seen that the laws of physics are efficiently ordered so as to produce highly desirable states.· But it was highly desirable from the point of view of the individual soldiers on both sides.· Objections are frequently raised by affected personnel, and methods to input documents automatically are thus highly desirable.
· More tea appeared, champagne hardly seemed fitting, however desirable.· But however desirable in marriage, these values are not essential causes or explanations of it.· Implementing the Cockcroft recommendations, however desirable that might be, was seen as difficult.· There are, however, considerable problems with such approaches, however desirable radical adult educators may consider them to be.
· Ford V6 conversions are intrinsically even less desirable - though worth considering as a cheap and reliable engine.· Here, your to-do list lives on its own page instead of in the calendar, a less desirable setup.· Each household was given a number of strips scattered between the desirable and less desirable fields.· Bowman, however, was transferred to a less desirable school; he sued, claiming that the transfer violated his rights.· The latter's captaincy gave him some pleasant social summers at camps near Brighton but rather less desirable autumn duties elsewhere.
· As he went into the garden, Nick thought she had never looked more beautiful or more desirable.· Indeed, our scenarios are nothing more than invitations to everyone to write better, more plausible, even more desirable outcomes.· Registration in Part A is more desirable in that the protection offered is stronger.· Bianca, the younger, more desirable daughter has swarms of suitors.· She looked more desirable than ever; now, closing his aching eyes behind their glasses, he felt lust rise.· How perfect Cammy had become in his memory, how much more desirable for having stepped behind a locked door!· Particular regions, towns, areas of the countryside, are wealthier and more desirable to live in than others.· Prescription Statements about politics often include claims or assumptions that certain choices and actions are more desirable than others.
· Lopez, who has insured her assets for £660 million, has been voted the world's most desirable woman.· I live on Nob Hill in San Francisco, one of the most desirable urban addresses in the world.· For most purposes a rectangular distribution is the most desirable because it provides the appropriate mix of youthful enthusiasm and ageing experience.· She says that most desirable street corners already have one or more of the two chains.· At another point, education seemed the most desirable goal.· The most desirable on-line capability was voting in elections, with half the sample in favor.· The most desirable proportion of height to length being 9 to 10.· As mentioned previously, monotherapy is always the most desirable.
· Not since Greta all those years ago had a woman seemed to him so desirable.
· Simultaneously, tax credits can target state support to approved groups, and promote socially desirable economic behaviour.· A number of grants and incentives are available for projects which are socially desirable, but not commercially viable without support.· It seems plausible that one of two things may happen, neither of which is socially desirable.· Not because holy poverty was impossible, but because it just wasn't a socially desirable objective.· In welfare economics we are taught that to internalize externalities by appropriate contracts is socially desirable.· It may impose levies and mandate subsidies for environmentally or socially desirable reasons.· The inexorable logic does not, however, establish that the result is morally or socially desirable.· In sum, special interests of politically effective groups rather than socially desirable interests triumph.
· Eventual guaranteed success is often a very desirable aspect, especially for young or slow learners.· These characteristics make it a very desirable agent for use in young people with any of the above seizure types.· More than two thirds of 1,344 respondents considered a basement a desirable feature, with a third considering them very desirable.· But later a demand for storable rocket propellants and life-support fluids could make the chemical processing of these gases very desirable.· That is a very desirable objective.· You're a very desirable woman.· He supposed you got bored with too much of it, but just at the moment it seemed very desirable.
NOUN· The reward is given only if a desirable behaviour occurs and the punisher is given only if undesirable behaviour occurs.· Most reformers in 1900 wished to achieve both, though they differed upon definitions of desirable behaviour.· Should the child lose the reward it earns for a desirable behaviour?· It may happen that the child is so naughty that it ends up never being rewarded for the desirable behaviour.· Reinforcers are rewards given to strengthen desirable behaviour.· That is their sole purpose - to strengthen desirable behaviour.· It is also vital that a targeted desirable behaviour is taught to the child to compete with the punished behaviour.· The tokens are given only on completion of a specified desirable behaviour.
· It is just that so many desirable ends are incompatible.· The reality is that party platforms are considerably more complex, with choices between desirable ends deliberately obscured.· What citizens expect above all of governments is that they should achieve desirable ends.· But it is the means by which these desirable ends are to be achieved that must shock and dismay.· Face-to-face situations provide the context, objectives spell out the desirable end and behaviours are the means.
· At another point, education seemed the most desirable goal.· A lot of them failed to reach that desirable goal.· But the assumption that reconciliation is a desirable goal in situations of this kind must be queried.· The desirable goals of accurate reading of handwriting or indeed recognition of spoken words have almost been achieved.
· Mr Lawson is right to argue that, given time, this desirable objective will be achieved.· Solidarity and diversity are both desirable objectives.· Because there are so many desirable objectives to achieve for the convalescent patient the outcome of rehabilitative measures is difficult to quantify.· Not because holy poverty was impossible, but because it just wasn't a socially desirable objective.· That is a very desirable objective.
· For a developing country in particular this might be a desirable outcome in the case of non-essential goods.· Indeed, our scenarios are nothing more than invitations to everyone to write better, more plausible, even more desirable outcomes.· Can he give any information as to how arrangements such as job sharing have grown in the civil service to facilitate that desirable outcome?
· Roll and Ross argue that these portfolios may have desirable qualities for the potential investor.· Write a short paragraph on the desirable qualities of a good receptionist. 2.· It also did away with the need for bias adjustment on the output devices - a most desirable quality.· Method: separate essential and desirable qualities.· Reliable cause of death statistics are woefully lacking for developing countries and of less than desirable quality for many developed ones.
· Or since these desirable states can be put into words, do they belong only to the left hemisphere?.· Now it has just been seen that the laws of physics are efficiently ordered so as to produce highly desirable states.· Identification with one's community is, though not morally obligatory, a desirable state, at least if that community is reasonably just.
· Lopez, who has insured her assets for £660 million, has been voted the world's most desirable woman.· If seducing desirable women was so easy, why had he not done it before?· You're a very desirable woman.
WORD FAMILYnoundesirabilitydesireadjectivedesirable ≠ undesirabledesired ≠ undesiredverbdesireadverbdesirably
1formal something that is desirable is worth having or doing: The ability to speak a foreign language is highly desirable. a desirable neighborhood It is desirable that you should have some familiarity with computers. It is desirable to keep the cost as low as possible.2 literary sexually attractive: a desirable young woman—desirably adverb—desirability /dɪˌzaɪrəˈbɪləti $ -ˌzaɪr-/ noun [uncountable]