So the story is that yesterday, I was helping a younger cousin write a book critique for her English class. She was doing fine, and she really didn't need that much help until she attempted to use "depictable" in a sentence. Of course, in Microsoft Word, that annoying, jagged, red line sprung up underneath it. I told her it wasn't a word, and she argued that it was, and it's been bothering me. The problem is that MW does't have it listed as a word, and neither do any online dictionaries that I know of. However, my English Lit. teacher at school--her dictionary has it. It's the only one where it's listed. So my question to you is--is "depictable" a word, or not?
No it is not. It isn't listed in my dictionary either which is oxford and rather bulky, so I am guessing it would have every word. To depict is and depictive, but not depictable. As far as I know anyway. Hope that helps. But as a matter of interest, give me the context of the word in a sentence. That could maybe help us.
Hmm...the way she used it was something like, "The characters are depictable through the author's strong descriptors" and when I read over it it took me a second to realize the word was wrong. I had no idea what word she even should have used for awhile, but eventually we chose to reword the sentence. It was quite awful.
I don't think so. *Looks it up* Actually, my Webster's Unabridged contains "depictive" so I suppose that it's okay as an adjective. I was wrong. But I don't think it would work in the sentence above. Describing the word is depictive of the meaning. However, the characters may be depicted by the author's strong description.
Alas, the word itself is then depictable, is it not? The psychology of langauge is rarely any different from music - it's all relative sounds from the instrument of the voice box et all. New words are made every year, and not necessarily from gutter trash-talkers, which are entered into updated dictionaries and relaive language text-based books. Personally, I love people who can be creative not only with the expression of words but also who possess enough intelligence to create new ones...even if by accident.
Without delving too far into the semantics, 'depictable' suggests to me that, in the example you gave, the descriptors can depict. Just like 'lovable' means that something can be loved. Therefore, I think 'depictable' is wrong because something either depicts or does not depict - there is no possibility of it depicting or not. Consequently, 'depictive' would be right because it is definite.
