acceptable
ac·cep·ti·ble/əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/adjective, noun
acceptable is spelled A-C-C-E-P-T-A-B-L-E, 4 syllables: ac·cep·ti·ble. The wrong spelling people search most is acceptible: about 80 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 20 of all searches for the word. Acceptable is an adjective meaning “Capable, worthy, or sure of being accepted or received with pleasure; welcome; gratifying; pleasing to a…”.
How many letters and syllables are in acceptable?
| Letters | 10: A-C-C-E-P-T-A-B-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4: ac·cep·ti·ble |
| In writing | 19 times per million words; the 4,521st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, acceptible, about 80 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell acceptable?
Acceptable is spelled A-C-C-E-P-T-A-B-L-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 20 of the searches for acceptable in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is acceptable?
Acceptable appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,521st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce acceptable?
- /əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/
- /ækˈsɛp.tə.bəl/
- /ɪkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/
Acceptable has 4 syllables, split ac·cep·ti·ble in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-acceptable.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of acceptable
- more acceptable comparative
- most acceptable superlative
- acceptables plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does acceptable mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Capable, worthy, or sure of being accepted or received with pleasure; welcome; gratifying; pleasing to a receiver.
We need to find an acceptable present for Jeff.
- 2
Barely worthy, less than excellent; passable.
The designs were acceptable, but they were nothing special either.
noun
- 1
Someone or something that is acceptable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Acceptable in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense capable, worthy or sure of being accepted:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | acceptable, admissible |
| German | annehmbar, akzeptabel |
| Portuguese | aceitável |
| Spanish | aceptable, asumible |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does acceptable come from?
From Middle English acceptable, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French acceptable, from Late Latin acceptābilis (“worthy of acceptance”). Morphologically accept + -able.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).