Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete Colourful.
  • adjective Apparently true; specious; potentially justifiable.
  • adjective Deceptive; fake, misleading.
  • adjective That can be coloured.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From colour +‎ -able.

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Examples

  • Queen's Majesty is not pleased that I should molest her Highness with any more of my colourable letters, which, although they be termed colourable, yet not offending the Queen's Majesty, I must say for myself that it was the plain truth, even as I desire to be saved afore

    Studies from Court and Cloister: being essays, historical and literary dealing mainly with subjects relating to the XVIth and XVIIth centuries 1880

  • This authority is called colourable, and the officer in such cases is said to be an officer de facto; which intends an intermediate state between an exercise strictly lawful and one without such colour of right.

    Memoirs of Aaron Burr Davis, Matthew L 1836

  • When, at length, they became really earnest in pressing President Krüger to grant a "colourable" measure of franchise reform -- to use Mr. Merriman's adjective -- it was for their own sake, and not for England's, that they worked.

    Lord Milner's Work in South Africa From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 1898

  • The students had also alleged that denying them their hall tickets was a "colourable" exercise of power by the principal, Dr Marie Fernandes, for which they tendered an unconditional apology to her before the court.

    Analysis 2010

  • The students had also alleged that denying them their hall tickets was a "colourable" exercise of power by the principal, Dr Marie Fernandes, for which they tendered an unconditional apology to her before the court.

    Analysis 2010

  • The students had also alleged that denying them their hall tickets was a "colourable" exercise of power by the principal, Dr Marie Fernandes, for which they tendered an unconditional apology to her before the court.

    Analysis 2010

  • The students had also alleged that denying them their hall tickets was a "colourable" exercise of power by the principal, Dr Marie Fernandes, for which they tendered an unconditional apology to her before the court.

    Analysis 2010

  • The students had also alleged that denying them their hall tickets was a "colourable" exercise of power by the principal, Dr Marie Fernandes, for which they tendered an unconditional apology to her before the court.

    Analysis 2010

  • No longer is there even any colourable claim (weak though it may be) that the preznit needs candid advice (and the supposition that he'd get better advice if no one else is looking too closely at it; the contrary is probably more accurate, that if the advice offered is to be the best possible, it ought to withstand the scrutiny of multiple eyes).

    Balkinization 2007

  • No longer is there even any colourable claim (weak though it may be) that the preznit needs candid advice (and the supposition that he'd get better advice if no one else is looking too closely at it; the contrary is probably more accurate, that if the advice offered is to be the best possible, it ought to withstand the scrutiny of multiple eyes).

    Balkinization 2007

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