Amenable

 WORD OF THE DAY

amenable / adjective / uh-MEE-nuh-bul

Definition
1a: liable to be brought to account
1b: answerable
2a: capable of submission (as to judgment or test)
2b: suited
2c: readily brought to yield, submit, or cooperate
2d: willing

Examples
Mr. Bush is in a position to make his party more amenable to minorities and especially blacks. He should seize the moment.
— Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal, 16 Jan. 2003

While no one yet knows how wide … margins can go, contracts establish royalty rates and project them far into the future. Many agents have thus pushed for a term of license of just a few years. Publishers, however, are not always amenable.
— Steven M. Zeitchik, Publishers Weekly, 14 June 1999

Did You Know?
Amenable is a legacy of Anglo-French and derives ultimately from Latin minari, meaning "to threaten."
Since 1596, English speakers have been using it in courtrooms and writings of law with the meaning "answerable," as in "citizens amenable to the law."
It later developed the meanings "suited" ("a simple function ... which is perfectly amenable to pencil-and-paper arithmetic"—Nature, April 1973) and "responsive" (as in "mental illnesses that are amenable to drug therapy").
It also came to be used of people with a general disposition to be agreeable or complaisant—like Mr. Dick in David Copperfield, who was "the most friendly and amenable creature in existence."
Nowadays, "amenable" is often used to describe someone who is favorably disposed to a particular named something.