English

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Etymology

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From Middle English countable, equivalent to count (to enumerate) +‎ -able.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈkaʊn.tə.bəl/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈkaʊn.tə.bəl/, [ˈkʰãʊ̯̃n.(ɾ)ə.bɫ̩]
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • Rhymes: -aʊntəbəl
  • Hyphenation: count‧a‧ble

Adjective

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countable (not comparable)

  1. Capable of being counted; having a quantity.
    Antonyms: uncountable, countless, numberless, innumerable; see also Thesaurus:innumerable
  2. (mathematics, of a set) Finite or countably infinite; having a one-to-one correspondence (bijection) with a subset of the natural numbers.
    Antonyms: uncountable, infinite
    Hypernyms: finite, countably infinite
    1. (mathematics, of a set) Countably infinite; having a bijection with the natural numbers.
      Synonym: denumerable
      Antonyms: uncountable, non-denumerable
  3. (grammar, of a noun) Freely usable with the indefinite article and with numbers.
    Synonym: count
    Antonyms: uncountable, noncount, non-count
    • 2014, James Lambert, “Diachronic stability in Indian English lexis”, in World Englishes, page 112:
      In these extracts the word abuse is used in the sense of ‘an individual piece of invective’ or ‘an abusive comment’ and is clearly a countable noun.

Usage notes

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  • The mathematics sense by which finite sets are countable is more common than the sense by which finite sets are not countable. To avoid ambiguity, the terms at most countable or countably infinite may be used.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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countable (plural countables)

  1. (grammar) A noun that is countable.
    Synonyms: count noun, countable noun
    Antonyms: uncountable, mass noun, noncount noun, non-count noun, uncountable noun

See also

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