answerability 1 of 2

as in accountability
willingness or obligation to explain one's actions or to admit being the cause of a problem Without any answerability to the people, the despot's actions were motivated by a desire for personal enrichment.

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1
as in responsible
being the one who must meet an obligation or suffer the consequences for failing to do so you are answerable for your own conduct at all times

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

2

Synonym Chooser

How does the adjective answerable contrast with its synonyms?

Some common synonyms of answerable are accountable, amenable, liable, and responsible. While all these words mean "subject to being held to account," answerable suggests a relation between one having a moral or legal obligation and a court or other authority charged with oversight of its observance.

an intelligence agency answerable to Congress

Where would accountable be a reasonable alternative to answerable?

The synonyms accountable and answerable are sometimes interchangeable, but accountable suggests imminence of retribution for unfulfilled trust or violated obligation.

elected officials are accountable to the voters

How do amenable and liable relate to one another, in the sense of answerable?

Both amenable and liable stress the fact of subjection to review, censure, or control by a designated authority under certain conditions.

laws are amenable to judicial review
not liable for the debts of the former spouse

When can responsible be used instead of answerable?

The meanings of responsible and answerable largely overlap; however, responsible implies holding a specific office, duty, or trust.

the bureau responsible for revenue collection

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of answerability
Adjective
These special prosecutors could investigate and charge high-ranking executive officials but were not answerable to the president. Anastasia Boden, National Review, 4 July 2025 OpenAI is currently completely controlled by its nonprofit board, which is purely answerable to the company’s founding mission: ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity. Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 20 June 2025 Issue The View from Here Will Trump use an obscure legal loophole to turn the National Guard into an anti-immigrant army answerable only to him? Air Mail, 14 June 2025 Like every member of the General Assembly, Stewart essentially is an independent contractor answerable to the voters, not an employee who can be fired or have their pay docked by the House leadership. Mark Pazniokas, Hartford Courant, 17 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for answerability
Recent Examples of Synonyms for answerability
Noun
  • There should also be accountability for government officials that jawboned social media companies like Facebook into censoring Americans’ protected speech.
    Robert Pearlman, ArsTechnica, 22 Sep. 2025
  • The lawsuit claims Uber misclassifies drivers as independent contractors to avoid accountability and withholds rider risk data.
    Stuart Dyos, Nashville Tennessean, 22 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Republican leadership of the House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for this budget proposal, did not respond to an NPR request for comment on this partisan divide.
    Cory Turner, NPR, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Teams are responsible for booking their own flights Teams that are uncertain about which flight to book sometimes look to producers to follow their lead.
    Skyler Caruso, PEOPLE, 26 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Objects look wider than empty spaces of the same size, and the Hubble Tension may be resolvable if the Milky Way is in a local void.
    Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harpers Magazine, 19 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • Advertisement Arisu accepts responsibility, and rolls a seven.
    Kayti Burt, Time, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Purpose, brotherhood and a responsibility to honor those who came before us.
    Devlina Sarkar, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • However, from time to time mistakes will be made and we will not be held liable.
    Jacob Camenker, USA Today, 28 Sep. 2025
  • The Lawrence School never reopened While the facility itself has not been found liable for the incidents, The Lawrence School is no longer in operation.
    Jim Riccioli, jsonline.com, 26 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • These studies showed that on-orbit refueling was feasible, but a flight demonstration was still needed.
    Matthew S Williams, Interesting Engineering, 25 Sep. 2025
  • According to the team, these computations should make the system feasible for industrial-scale use.
    Jacek Krywko, ArsTechnica, 25 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • But, as is true for most of the things that happen in Black Rabbit, there’s no easy way to explain something that appears, well, easily explainable on the surface.
    Joey Nolfi, Entertainment Weekly, 20 Sep. 2025
  • That means building systems that are explainable, compliant and rooted in real project conditions.
    Michael Pink, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • These guidelines are 2 grams (g) a day of plant stanols or sterols and 10 to 25 g of soluble fiber.
    Patty Weasler, Verywell Health, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Overnight Oats Oats are rich in beta-glucan, a type of soluble fiber that helps lower LDL cholesterol by reducing its absorption in the gut.
    Jillian Kubala, Health, 23 Sep. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Answerability.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/answerability. Accessed 29 Sep. 2025.

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