adoptable

Pluraladoptables

1. 1
   adjective

   Capable of being taken into a family through adoption.

   All the kittens at the rescue are adoptable now.

   The agency confirmed that the child was legally adoptable.

   Oppositeunadoptable

   Note

   The suffix does the work here: adopt plus -able, in its literal sense of "capable of being." The question this sense answers is eligibility, meaning whether age, health or legal status allows an adoption at all, as with infants considered ready only at three weeks. Keep it apart from the "appealing" meaning, which asks whether anyone would actually want to adopt.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person or animal who is eligible to be adopted into a family.

   The rescue listed three new adoptables on its website this week.

   Each adoptable gets a health check before going to a new home.

3. 3
   adjective

   Appealing or desirable enough that one would want to adopt it.

   The shelter photographs each cat to make it look as adoptable as possible.

   A friendly temperament makes a rescue dog far more adoptable.

   Similarappealing, lovable, endearing

   Oppositeunappealing

   Note

   Here the suffix leans away from possibility and toward appeal. Because it measures desirability, it grades freely: highly adoptable, more adoptable, most adoptable. Shelters use it for the qualities that win homes, such as personality, youthful vigor or a friendly temperament. If an intensifier sounds natural, this is the meaning in play. The eligibility sense is closer to a plain yes or no.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A character created by an artist that another person can claim ownership of, usually by purchase or trade.

   Each adoptable comes with a reference sheet showing the character's colors and design.

   He commissioned several adoptables and later resold them to other collectors.

   Note

   Online art communities use the word for an original character that an illustrator designs and then offers to someone else, by sale or by claim. What changes hands is ownership and the right to use the design. A buyer may later resell it, so these characters often travel with a reference sheet that fixes their colors and look.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A one-of-a-kind virtual creature that a user can adopt and raise within a game.

   Each adoptable in the game has its own colors and stats.

   He spent the weekend breeding rare adoptables for his collection.

   Note

   A coinage from online pet-collecting games, where each creature is digitally generated and unique, then claimed by a registered user to raise, breed or trade. Its traits, such as colors and stats, are what make some specimens rare and sought after. Unlike the artist's character, nobody draws it by hand for a buyer. The game itself produces it.

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