The Collaborative International Dictionary
Recoverable \Re*cov"er*a*ble\ (-?*b'l), a. [Cf. F. recouvrable.] Capable of being recovered or regained; capable of being brought back to a former condition, as from sickness, misfortune, etc.; obtainable from a debtor or possessor; as, the debt is recoverable; goods lost or sunk in the ocean are not recoverable.
A prodigal course
Is like the sun's; but not, like his, recoverable.
--Shak.
If I am recoverable, why am I thus?
--Cowper.
[1913 Webster] -- Re*cov"er*a*ble*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 15c., from Old French recouvrable, from recouvrer (see recover) .
Wiktionary
a. 1 Capable of being regained or recovered. 2 restorable from sickness, faintness, danger, or the like. 3 Capable of being brought back to a former condition. 4 obtainable from a debtor or possessor: as, the debt is recoverable.
WordNet
adj. capable of being recovered or regained; "recoverable truth of a past event" [ant: unrecoverable]
Usage examples of "recoverable".
He tossed the biodegradable wrapper into the glowing ashes of the fire pit and began the job of searching out recoverable trank darts.
She had possessed herself of the journal of his early travels, among the other portions and parcels recoverable from the dreadful past, and from time to time on this journey she had read him passages out of it, with mingled sentiment and irony, and, whether she was mocking or admiring, equally to his confusion.
In other words it is the negative quality of passiveness either in recoverable latency or insipient latescence.
The certainty that fingerprints exist -- all but invisible and yet sufficiently recoverable to convict a man of any crime from theft to murder -- provided an analogy that allowed Dylan more easily to believe that with their very touch, people might leave behind something more peculiar but every bit as real as natural oils impressed with the patterns of skin ridges.
The certainty that fingerprints exist - all but invisible and yet sufficiently recoverable to convict a man of any crime from theft to murder - provided an analogy that allowed Dylan more easily to believe that with their very touch, people might leave behind something more peculiar but every bit as real as natural oils impressed with the patterns of skin ridges.
Boeing had all sorts of ideas for reducing the costs of the Saturn V system, for instance by adding strap-on reusable rockets to it, and even making the S-IC itself recoverable, including wings, parachutes, hydrogen-filled balloons, drag brakes, paragliders, and rotary systems of spinning parachutes.
It should simply have split an anomalous plumbic vein, to produce recoverable specimens.
The result so far is, that the only action of contract in Glanvill's time was debt, that the only debts recovered [261] without writing were those which have been described, and that the only one of these for which there was not quid pro quo ceased to be recoverable in that way by the reign of Edward III.