passable

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   good enough to be accepted, but not especially good

   His first attempt at the speech was passable but still needed practice.

2. 2
   adj

   able to be traveled across or through without being blocked

   After the snowplows arrived, the mountain road became passable again.

Borrowed from French passable and also transparently formed from pass + -able. Its literal sense is "capable of being passed"; the evaluative sense developed from the idea of something capable of passing inspection or meeting a minimum standard.

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