Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Capability or susceptibility of being modified or varied, as in character, type, form, or function.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Capability of being modified; state or quality of being modifiable.

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

  • noun The condition of being modifiable

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The first, that De Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of living forms (though without any precise information on the subject), and how such modifiability might account for the origin of species; the second, that he very clearly apprehended the great modern geological doctrine, so strongly insisted upon by Hutton, and so ably and comprehensively expounded by Lyell, that we must look to existing causes for the explanation of past geological events.

    Essays 2007

  • Rather, a policy of openness, modifiability, and transparency – an ability to have a discourse about what the community is doing – is behind these successes.

    TPRC on Peer Production: Opening comments Rebecca Tushnet 2006

  • Alden, a committed mammalian neurophysiologist, turned to the study of the spinal cord, particularly the modifiability of spinal reflexes, and went on to make important contributions in collaboration with Richard

    Eric R. Kandel - Autobiography 2001

  • It means, in the first place, that while current optimistic doctrines about the modifiability of human nature are true, they are true within limits -- limits that vary with the individual.

    Human Traits and their Social Significance Irwin Edman

  • If, therefore, we attribute the forms of organisms to the action of {167} external conditions, _i. e._ of incident forces on their modifiable structure, we give but a partial account of the matter, removing a step back, as it were, the action of the internal condition, power, or force which must be conceived as occasioning such ready modifiability.

    On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart

  • The situation is not thinkable at all if we do not suppose the internal modifiability of the agents, and this means that these agents are able somehow to receive internally and to react upon impulses which are communicated externally in the form of motion or activity.

    Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926

  • The notion involves not simply the idea of bare collision and rebound, but something much more profound, namely, the internal modifiability of the colliding agents.

    Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926

  • By a very similar method No. 18 was tested for his sensitiveness to the noise and jar from the induction apparatus which was used in connection with many of my experiments on vision and the modifiability of behavior.

    The Dancing Mouse A Study in Animal Behavior Robert M. Yerkes 1916

  • As problem methods we may designate those tests of initiative and modifiability which involve the opening of doors by pushing or pulling them, and the climbing of an inclined ladder.

    The Dancing Mouse A Study in Animal Behavior Robert M. Yerkes 1916

  • The modifiability of behavior -- Educational value of experimental studies of modifiability -- Methods: the problem method; the labyrinth method; the discrimination method -- Relation of method to characteristics of animal --

    The Dancing Mouse A Study in Animal Behavior Robert M. Yerkes 1916

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