understandableadj.

c1475 Cath. Angl. 260/1 (MS. A) Ondirstandabille, jntelligibilis.

1577 R. Holinshed Chron. II. 735/1 Their language was vnknowne, and not vnderstandable to any man that coulde bee brought to talke with them.

1584 R. Scot Discouerie Witchcraft xii. xxi. 279 Whether the words of the charme be vnderstandable or not, it skilleth not.

1635 A. Gil Sacred Philos. Holy Script. Pref. sig. *2^v Faith is a supplie of reason in things understandable, as the imagination is of sight in things that are visible.

c1650 J. Spalding Memorialls Trubles Scotl. & Eng. (1851) II. 294 This vncouth act, scarss wnderstandabill, bred gryte feir and perturbatioun.

1651 R. Baxter Plain Script. Proof Infants Church-membership & Baptism 82 Otherwise we might pervert all Scripture, and none of it would be understandable.

1799 R. Southey in C. C. Southey Life & Corr. R. Southey (1850) II. 34 I suffer a good deal from illness, and in a way hardly understandable by those in health.

1832 Examiner 84/2 Putting the law in a readable and understandable shape.

1870 J. Ruskin Lect. Art (1875) 73 There are two of the Puritans, whose work if I can succeed in making clearly understandable to you.., it is all I need care to do.

a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(1)) (1850) Ecclus. iii. 32 The wis herte and vnderstandable shalabstenen hymself from synnes.

1587 Sir P. Sidney & A. Golding tr. P. de Mornay Trewnesse Christian Relig. vi. 93 Theodorus..hath termed them, the substantiall Vnderstanding, the Vnderstandable substance, and the Fountayne of Soules.

1654 E. Gayton Pleasant Notes Don Quixot iv. v. 197 The daughters of those mothers..are forward and understandable of womens matters, sooner than other children.

1656 tr. T. White Peripateticall Inst. 198 The Understandablenesse of a thing, or the quiddity, the whatnesse.

1934 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Understandability.

1947 A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons tr. M. Weber Theory Social & Econ. Organization i. i. 84 As a type (‘ideal type’) which has the merit of clear understandability and lack of ambiguity.

1976 Economist 31 July 4 Perhaps such a system would not be as statistically fair as some other suggestions but fairness would not be bought at the expense of understandability.