Affable

 WORD OF THE DAY

affable / adjective / AF-uh-bul

Definition
1: being pleasant and at ease in talking to others
2: characterized by ease and friendliness

Examples
"… Perkatory, the coffee shop founded by her late mother in Devil's Beach's quaint business district, … is located in a building owned by Lana's dad, Peter, an affable hippie and the island's leading purveyor of gossip."
— Colette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Times, 29 Nov. 2021

Bertie's a bright, affable fellow, but every little success he has feels cheapened in comparison with his dad's overpowering accomplishments.
— Lev Grossman, Time, 7 Feb. 2005

Did You Know?
Affable is one of several English words that evolved from the Latin verb fari, which means "to speak."
The adjective comes from Latin affabilis, which comes from the fari relative affari ("to speak to"), plus -abilis, meaning "able."
Some other fari derivatives are infant, fable, and fate.
Infant comes from the Latin infans, which means "incapable of speech" and combines in- and fans, the present participle of fari.
Fable comes from the Latin fabula, a fari offspring that means "conversation."
Fate comes from the Latin word fatum, meaning "what has been spoken" and deriving from fatus, the past participle of fari.

One of the peculiarities of the English language is that ungendered words (especially nouns) may occasionally take gendered pronouns or modifiers.
A ship, for example, is often called "she." We also find that some general-purpose words (especially adjectives) tend to be used of one sex rather than the other.
Such is the case with affable, which our records show is far more likely to be used to describe a man than a woman.
This should not be taken as evidence that men are friendlier or easier to speak with (nor should you shy away from describing a woman as affable), but it does serve to illustrate the manner in which the word is often used.