Standard Lemma guide

taskable

adj · noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

adj

Meaning 1

To which tasks can be assigned.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: not-comparable

Topics: engineering, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, technology

Examples

  • a taskable intelligent agent; a taskable sensor

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

adj

Meaning 2

(of an enslaved person held on a plantation) Considered to be capable of performing labour, especially field labour.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: US, historical, not-comparable, obsolete

Examples

  • 1789, record of sale of enslaved people by Thomas Washington, cited in Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998, Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 198, footnote 85, [The 16-year-old boy has] been taskable these 3 years past.
  • 1796, court record, Neufville v. Mitchell, 1 Desaussure 480, South Carolina, cited in Helen Tunnicliff Catterall (ed.), Judicial Cases concerning American Slavery and the Negro, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1929, pp. 277-278, defendant [...] states [...] many of them were diseased and not taskable;
  • 1813, Bahama Gazette, 19 December, 1813, cited in Howard Johnson, The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783-1933, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, p. 29, to oblige Planters to plant a certain quantity of Provisions to each taskable Negro

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

On a plantation exploiting an enslaved labour force, a person considered to be capable of performing labour, especially field labour.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: US, historical, obsolete

Examples

  • 1937, Guion Griffis Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina, Chapel Hill, p. 83, cited in Melville Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past, Boston: Harper, 1941, Chapter 5, p. 128, The very young and the old were usually engaged in the house, while the full “taskables” were more profitably employed in the field.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: taskable hand, working slave

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From task + -able.