Word of the Day

: March 5, 2017

affable

adjective AF-uh-bul

What It Means

1 : being pleasant and at ease in talking to others

2 : characterized by ease and friendliness

affable in Context

Michelle looked forward to sharing her coffee breaks with Joe, one of her more affable coworkers.

"Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson is an affable, chatty fellow. But the filmmaker sounded particularly upbeat Tuesday when he jumped on the phone to talk about the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release of his … Marvel superhero movie." — Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly, 24 Jan. 2017

Did You Know?

Affable is one of several English words that evolved from the Latin verb fari, which means "to speak." The adjective comes from Latin affabilis, which comes from the fari relative affari ("to speak to"), plus -abilis, meaning "able." Some other fari derivatives are infant, fable, and fate. Infant comes from the Latin infans, which means "incapable of speech" and combines in- and fans, the present participle of fari. Fable comes from the Latin fabula, a fari offspring that means "conversation." Fate comes from the Latin word fatum, meaning "what has been spoken" and deriving from fatus, the past participle of fari.