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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
questionable
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a questionable assumption (=one that is likely to be wrong)
▪ That assumption was obviously highly questionable.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
highly
▪ Whether that is so in other societies, which is highly questionable, is irrelevant.
▪ However, she makes two highly questionable assumptions that must be challenged.
▪ In fact, it is highly questionable whether the royal use of these powers had been illegal.
▪ Such a view seems highly questionable.
▪ To most people today the prophecy about the second coming seems deranged and the other about everlasting life highly questionable.
▪ These are, however, highly questionable principles in the moral and practical minefield of child care policy.
▪ The cogency of this prescriptive analysis is highly questionable.
▪ Now, it happens that is a very controversial and highly questionable economic proposition.
more
▪ Even more questionable is the significance of the king's conversion for his people.
▪ What is more questionable, however, is whether it is possible to extend the direct response approach indiscriminately.
very
▪ Whether this subsection applies to insider dealing is very questionable.
▪ Furthermore, the coincidence of inflation and unemployment makes the Keynesian policy recommendations very questionable.
▪ Tumin regards this as a very questionable assumption.
▪ There is a further sense in which a lack of access by land-users renders the aggregate view very questionable.
■ NOUN
assumption
▪ However, she makes two highly questionable assumptions that must be challenged.
▪ What do you think is the most sensible assumption and the most questionable assumption of conservatism?
▪ However, this is a rather questionable assumption.
▪ This argument seems to me to be based on several questionable assumptions.
▪ For some questionable assumptions are being made.
▪ This argument of course relies on the questionable assumption that eye movements adequately describe the distribution of attention to a stimulus.
▪ Tumin regards this as a very questionable assumption.
decision
▪ Which rather begs the question-shouldn't there be a governing body that regulates such questionable decisions?
▪ There was the questionable decision to bring former Raiders coach Tom Flores out of retirement and back on to the field.
value
▪ Without them, the ships are of questionable value.
▪ Try to avoid forcing your reviewer to read through voluminous material of questionable value to him.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Barton has been involved in some questionable financial deals.
▪ It is questionable whether the advertisements will increase sales.
▪ The conclusions of the survey are questionable because the research was based on a very small sample of people.
▪ The picture's value is questionable.
▪ The research is questionable because the sample used was very small.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Equally questionable esthetically is the dashboard, which has a look of being pieced together from assorted parts.
▪ His dream had finally run out in an Arabian nightmare of high living and questionable favours.
▪ How benign these films are, though, is questionable.
▪ If the lab results are questionable, a patient may be asked to return for another test.
▪ It seems to me questionable that Ruether is herself theistic.
▪ The value of such a simple dichotomy is questionable.
▪ There was the questionable decision to bring former Raiders coach Tom Flores out of retirement and back on to the field.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Questionable

Questionable \Ques"tion*a*ble\, a.

  1. Admitting of being questioned; inviting, or seeming to invite, inquiry. [R.]

    Thou com'st in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee. -- Shak.

  2. Liable to question; subject to be doubted or called in question; problematical; doubtful; suspicious.

    It is questionable whether Galen ever saw the dissection of a human body.T. -- Baker.

    Syn: Disputable; debatable; uncertain; doubtful; problematical; suspicious.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
questionable

1580s, "that may be interrogated;" c.1600, "open to dispute, doubtful," from question (v.) + -able. Deprecatory sense of "dubious in character" is attested from 1806. Related: Questionably.

Wiktionary
questionable

a. 1 (context obsolete English) Inviting questions; inviting inquiry. 2 problematic; open to doubt or challenge. 3 Of dubious respectability or morality.

WordNet
questionable
  1. adj. subject to question; "questionable motives"; "a questionable reputation"; "a fire of questionable origin" [ant: unquestionable]

  2. able to be refuted [syn: refutable, confutable, confutative]

Usage examples of "questionable".

But premises so strongly geo- and anthropocentric were of questionable value.

What was most astonishing to Armstrong was that Blitzkrieg appeared to have no notion whatsoever that his score for the front nine was in any way questionable.

Saddler thought it in questionable taste to exhibit a poor microcephalic idiot that way.

Even after one learns to recognize the highly questionable practice of morphological dating, one may be astonished to note how frequently it is used.

The two perissodactyl mammals started playing catch with the Marlin Perkins impersonator who had led a questionable life before going to Hell.

And it was questionable, she thought, whether she could have stopped Quelt anyway.

I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.

Abandoning seership for rulership, he gradually, despite his most strenuous efforts to retain it, lost the mystical vision which had given him his spiritual authority -- but not, unfortunately, before he had covered with that authority many acts and policies of the most questionable nature.

Covered in patchy grey fur, it was wearing stripy socks and a brightly coloured waistcoat of questionable taste.

As for arch-bishops, arch-deacons, deans, rural deans, and all the other worldly machinery which has been superadded to the church, the truth compels us to add, that our divine felt no especial reverence since he considered them as so much clerical surplusage, of very questionable authority, and of doubtful use.

Miss Ross walked defiantly on, keeping her place on the trottoir with a grim determination not to be pushed off it by all the voyous in Paris, and though his presence was, as he well knew, entirely superfluous upon the occasion, he could not pay her the questionable compliment of leaving her to prove her independence alone.

There was an exchange of questionable compliments betwixt the officer and the Count, whereafter, to avoid further unpleasantness, Castelroux conducted me to a private room, where we took our meal in gloomy silence.

But before leaving York, Adams had been told by Elbridge Gerry that he was to be appointed a commissioner to France, in place of Silas Deane, who was being recalled to answer charges of questionable conduct.

The town was already jammed with immigrants, and people were starting to build on hillside areas that Anse himself thought were questionable at best.

Behind it were acres of pine woods, her private land, so the need for an elaborate backstop was questionable, but she did not want to shoot anyone.