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Glite Dictionary
colonizable

colonizable

7.2
A place where people, animals, or small living things can live
  • adjective
  • /ˈkɒlənɪzəbl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : colonizable
  • Last year, however, private industry had sensed the profits to be made in discovering planets both readily accessible and colonizable, and had begun building their own Gates.

Examples

  • Working in the Victorian ethnologist's mode, Beeton treats the household as the stage for all those rituals of distinction that isolate humankind from the beasts and colonizing humans from colonizable ones.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Scientists believe that many regions of the Moon are colonizable, making them prime candidates for future human settlements.

  • Researchers are exploring whether certain microbial life can thrive in colonizable environments on Mars.

  • The new agricultural techniques are designed to turn previously barren land into colonizable farmland.

Synonyms

habitable
vscolonizable
34 4.6

A place that people can live in, like a house or planet

means basic suitability rather than being especially comfortable for people
inhabitable
vscolonizable
3 3.9

Fit for people to live in

allows animals or other organisms to establish there as well
settleable
vscolonizable
6.3

Suitable for people to live in

can also become home to animals and other organisms
occupiable
vscolonizable
4.6

Safe and ready for people to live or work in

is suitable for long term establishment by organisms rather than short human use

Surface Forms

colonizable positive
colonizable comparative
colonizable superlative

Morphology

colonizable = colonize (transparent) = colon + ize + able

The adjective is a regular adjectival derivation from the verb 'colonize' with the productive suffix '-able', yielding 'able to be colonized'.

Etymology

The word colonizable comes from colony, which comes from the old word colonus meaning 'settler' and colere meaning 'to cultivate'. So, something colonizable can be 'settled' or 'grown on' by people, animals, or small organisms, which is why we call a planet, land, or surface colonizable when new life can move in and live there.