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Is plannable, (e.g.: this task can be planned, it is plannable) an actual word in UK English?

It's one I see used quite often (mostly in business scenarios, both spoken and in emails) but haven't been able to find in on-line dictionaries and is always underlined by spell-checkers.

Research suggests that it's in fairly common usage although not in any dictionaries. I found some examples and interesting comments here: proz.com/forum/linguistics/…

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  • I think this question would be improved if you could find a couple instances of the word in question being used on-line, and provide links.
    – J.R.
    May 29, 2013 at 9:56
  • @J.R. - I don't recall seeing it in use on-line, but certainly in business emails and everyday speech.
    – SteB
    May 29, 2013 at 10:01
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    Perhaps you haven't, but you could do a little research and see what you find.
    – J.R.
    May 29, 2013 at 10:09
  • Relating to the status of a word: Is 'quantitate' a synonym for 'quantify' or just a misnomer?
    – Matt E. Эллен
    May 29, 2013 at 10:41
  • @J.R. - Look's like it's in fairly common usage although not in any dictionaries, found some examples and interesting comments here: proz.com/forum/linguistics/…
    – SteB
    May 29, 2013 at 11:12

3 Answers 3

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Can't find it in any on-line dictionary, so probably not an "official" word (TrevorD's suggestion is probably the best grammatically correct usage for now).

However it is in fairly common usage, mostly in a business environment, so will likely be understood from context and possibly added to dictionaries over time.

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From your reference it is clearly in use - and in the US as well as the UK.

Personally, if I needed to express that meaning, I think I would use can be planned for or an appropriate variation of that.

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Sorry to come in very late on this, but I was also searching for the same thing.

I was considering this word but didn't really like it, so I used "programmable" instead, which does exist and I believe says the same thing.

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  • There is certainly overlap between something that can be planned and something that can be programmed, but the two ideas don't seem entirely interchangeable, do they? What limits would you place on using programmable as an alternative to plannable?
    – Sven Yargs
    May 6, 2016 at 4:19
  • I also thought at first that they are not completely interchangeable, but didn't manage to come up with any examples of when I couldn't replace plannable with programmable. In my context, I was talking about the use of planning in an electronic calendar (programming the events in the calendar, not the actual calendar application!), so programmable has a time associated element. Does plannable?
    – Brian Cleveland
    May 7, 2016 at 13:06

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