Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Law Returnable or negotiable in kind or by substitution, as a quantity of grain for an equal amount of the same kind of grain.
  • adjective Interchangeable.
  • noun Law Something that is fungible.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Capable of being replaced by another in respect of function, office, or use.
  • noun In the civil law, a thing of such a nature that it may be replaced by another of equal quantity and quality; a movable which may be estimated by weight, number, or measure, as grain or money.

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

  • adjective Able to be substituted for something of equal value or utility; interchangeable, exchangeable, replaceable.
  • noun Any fungible item.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of goods or commodities; freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation
  • noun a commodity that is freely interchangeable with another in satisfying an obligation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungī (vice), to perform (in place of).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin fungor "discharge a duty" and -ible "able to".

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Examples

  • And he set the word fungible on a triple word score, pulling into the lead.

    VANISHING ACTS JODI PICOULT 2005

  • And he set the word fungible on a triple word score, pulling into the lead.

    VANISHING ACTS JODI PICOULT 2005

  • And he set the word fungible on a triple word score, pulling into the lead.

    VANISHING ACTS JODI PICOULT 2005

  • And he set the word fungible on a triple word score, pulling into the lead.

    Vanishing Acts Picoult, Jodi, 1966- 2005

  • Geithner, claimed that it would be impossible to find out where the money went, on the argument that money is "fungible" -- that is to say all money is the same.

    Look Out Below! They Call This Season 'Fall' for a Reason 2009

  • Secondly, you assume there will be a free market and oil will remain fungible.

    Priorities « PubliCola 2010

  • Though biblical historians try hard to paint a detailed picture of the first century for us, it would have to be impossibly fine-grained to give us the generational nuances of a phrase as fungible as “making love,” let alone the alterations that semantic drift might bring to a phrase like “in the beginning was the Word.”

    Beginner’s Grace Kate Braestrup 2010

  • Though biblical historians try hard to paint a detailed picture of the first century for us, it would have to be impossibly fine-grained to give us the generational nuances of a phrase as fungible as “making love,” let alone the alterations that semantic drift might bring to a phrase like “in the beginning was the Word.”

    Beginner’s Grace Kate Braestrup 2010

  • Though biblical historians try hard to paint a detailed picture of the first century for us, it would have to be impossibly fine-grained to give us the generational nuances of a phrase as fungible as “making love,” let alone the alterations that semantic drift might bring to a phrase like “in the beginning was the Word.”

    Beginner’s Grace Kate Braestrup 2010

  • These homes are what economists like to call fungible, easily converted from one commodity into another.

    CNN.com 2010

Comments

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  • certainly a sneaky little thinktankish word. It has insinuated itself into my mind recently in the phrase "Time is not fungible" For example, I cannot spend an hour on Wordie and do an hour's work simultaneously. . .sadly

    June 15, 2007

  • Usually used to describe money.

    November 5, 2007

  • "Teachers are not fungible." -- Dr. Eugene White, superintendent of Indianapolis school system.

    June 24, 2009

  • Example: Oil is a world commodity, but gasoline on a global scale is not fungible due to issues with transportation and government intervention to either penalize or subsidize gasoline use. However, once gasoline is in your car's gas tank, it's definitely fungible.

    July 5, 2009

  • This word was used in an article in The Washington Post, "Pearls Before Breakfast" by Gene Weingarten. He wrote:

    "L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant."

    November 2, 2009