Meaning

Required to justify one's actions (to somebody); accountable, responsible..

Definitions by Sense

1. Required to justify one's actions (to somebody); accountable, responsible.
2. (of a question) Able to be answered.
3. (archaic) Correspondent, in accordance; comparable (to).
4. (archaic) Proportionate; commensurate in amount; suitable.
5. (rare) Of an argument: capable of being answered or refuted; admitting a satisfactory answer.

Example Sentences

1731, Jonathan Swift, “The Sentiments of a Church-of-England Man, with respect to Religion and Government” in Miscellanies, London: Benjamin Motte and Charles Bathurst, Volume I, Section 2, p. 91, Should any Man argue, that […] he cannot be justly punished, but is answerable only to God […]

Is my question answerable on basis of the reading alone or does it go outside the information given in the story?

What wit and policie of man is answerable to their discreet and orderly course?

To this revelation he assented the sooner, as he confesses, because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

[…] at my farm / I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail, / Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls, / And all things answerable to this portion.

By my other wife I had a daughter, so hard favoured, so foule and ill faced, that I thinke a grove full of golden trees; and the leaves of Rubies and Dyamonds, would not bee a dowrie aunswerable to her deformitie.

[T]he argument, though ſubtle, is yet anſwerable.

Word Forms

• more answerable
• most answerable
• aunswerable

Synonyms for answerable

Antonyms for answerable

Related Words

When Should You Use Answerable?

Use answerable when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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