certifiable

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English certify

Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom

Proto-Italic *-ðlom

Proto-Italic *-ðlis

Latin -bilis

Latin -ābilis

Old French -ablebor.

Middle English -able

English -able

English certifiable

From certify + -able.

Adjective

certifiable (comparative more certifiable, superlative most certifiable)

1. (of a document) That can or must be certified.
2. (informal, of a person) Mentally ill to such an extent that involuntary institutionalization is appropriate; crazy.
   • 2015, Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin's Daughter, →ISBN, page 311:

     If any person said to you in 1950 that in seventeen years Miss Stalin would defect to the West, you would rightly have considered that person certifiable. She has now done it, with impressive smoothness and conviction.

Synonyms

• (mentally ill): insane, mad, nuts

Derived terms

• certifiableness
• certifiably
• noncertifiable
• uncertifiable

Translations

that can or must be certified

• Catalan: certificable
• Italian: attestabile, certificabile, constatabile
• Manx: yn-teishtey
• Spanish: certificable

mentally ill

• Catalan: boig (ca)

Noun

certifiable (plural certifiables)

1. (informal) A crazy person.
   • 2009 August 22, Bob Herbert, “Voices of Anxiety”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 4 December 2022:

     Forget the certifiables who are scrawling Hitler mustaches on pictures of the president.

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “certifiable”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “certifiable”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• rectifiable