Eatable or edible?
eatable is an adjective meaning “Able to be eaten; edible”; edible is an adjective meaning “Capable of being eaten without harm; suitable for consumption; innocuous to…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) edible is about 65 times as common as eatable.
What is the difference between eatable and edible?
| eatable | edible | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, noun | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | Able to be eaten; edible Anything edible; food | Capable of being eaten without harm; suitable for consumption; innocuous to humans Capable of being eaten without disgust or disrelish Anything edible |
| Example | Someplace in the Hegdehaugen area I stopped outside a grocer's where some food was displayed in the window. A cat lay asleep beside a round… | edible fruit |
| Pronunciation | /ˈiːtəbəl/ | /ˈɛdɪbəl/ [ˈɛdɪbɫ̩] /ˈɛdəbəl/ |
| In writing | about once in every 15 million words | 4.3 times per million words |
Sources: eatable and edible in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of eatable and edible
eatable
- 1
Able to be eaten; edible
- 2
Anything edible; food
Someplace in the Hegdehaugen area I stopped outside a grocer's where some food was displayed in the window. A cat lay asleep beside a round loaf of white bread, and just behind it…
edible
- 1
Capable of being eaten without harm; suitable for consumption; innocuous to humans
edible fruit
- 2
Anything edible
- 3
Capable of being eaten without disgust or disrelish
Although stale, the bread was edible
- 4
In particular, an edible mushroom
- 5
In which edible plants are grown for human consumption
- 6
A foodstuff, usually a baked good, infused with tetrahydrocannabinol and/or other cannabinoids from cannabutter or other marijuana
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, eatable or edible?
eatable appears about once in every 15 million words; edible 4.3 times per million words.
eatable about once in every 15 million wordsedible 4.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search eatable vs edible?
“eatable vs edible” is searched about 1,900 times a month on Google and 40 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“edible vs eatable”, “eatable or edible”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.