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Glite Dictionary
🏆 Likely to win ✅ Allowed to run
electable

electable

14 4.9
Likely to win an election because many voters like them
  • adjective
  • /ɪˈlɛktəbl/
translation icon : viable
  • Many voters prefer candidates who are electable, believing they are more likely to win in the election.

So then the powers that be said these people in our party are not electable.

Examples

  • O'Donnell's biggest obstacle has been convincing voters that a more conservative Republican is electable in dark-blue Delaware.

    Blog text (6)

  • "The argument regarding Mike Castle was that he was electable; he was a provable, electable commodity in Delaware," Walker said.

    Blog text (6)

  • If we do this right, you might be more electable.

    Chappaquiddick (2018)

  • " The person who is the most conservative and who is electable is the one you put on the ticket.

    Blog text (32)

  • If I become convinced Clinton is more electable than Obama, I will jump ship and support her.

    Blog text (29)

  • And Clinton won 13 percent of the people who said Obama was the most electable candidate.

    Blog text (16)

  • But, as it turned out, he really wasn't electable after all.

    Blog text (30)

  • And Wollander has a clean image, electable by a landslide.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • You've been dreaming of an "electable" candidate to go to bat against Obama in a debate.

    Blog text (3)

  • Santorum has proven he will not be electable as a presidential nominee.

    Blog text (17)

How Electable

inevitable
1 5.3
electable
14 4.9
possible
∞ 1.0
unlikely
487 1.9
unelectable
6 7.2

Surface Forms

electable positive

Morphology

electable = elect (semi-transparent) = elect + able

Formally 'elect' + '-able' is clear, but the gloss 'likely to win' is an evaluative inference beyond the literal 'able to be elected', so learners may not derive the exact pragmatic sense.

Etymology

Electable comes from elect ('to choose') plus the ending -able ('able to be'), the same root as election. So, for the first sense, someone who is electable is 'able to be chosen' by voters because they have the qualities that make them likely to win.