LEGIBLE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does legible mean? 

• LEGIBLE (adjective)
  The adjective LEGIBLE has 1 sense:

1. (of handwriting, print, etc.) capable of being read or deciphered

  Familiarity information: LEGIBLE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEGIBLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of handwriting, print, etc.) capable of being read or deciphered

Context example:

legible handwriting

Similar:

clean; fair ((of a manuscript) having few alterations or corrections)

clear; decipherable; readable (easily deciphered)

Antonym:

illegible ((of handwriting, print, etc.) not legible)

Derivation:

legibility (a quality of writing (print or handwriting) that can be easily read)

 Context examples 

It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“My reign is not yet over”—these words were legible in one of these inscriptions—“you live, and my power is complete.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The letter, with a direction hardly legible, to "Miss A. E.—," was evidently the one which he had been folding so hastily.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched page.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The team subsequently deployed a camera, providing footage of the name plaque on the side of the vessel with the name "Grayback" still legible.

(Lost 52 Project announces discovery of wrecked sub near Okinawa, Wikinews)

B.’ are legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any one of them.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible, ‘Beddoes writes in cipher to say H. has told all. Sweet Lord, have mercy on our souls!’

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That it might the better escape notice, he had invented a fiction that it belonged to Mr. Blackboy, and was to be left with Barkis till called for; a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have, in my possession, in his hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W.'s signature, here and there defaced by fire, but legible to anyone. I never attested any such document. And I have the document itself, in my possession. Uriah Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and opened a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he was about, and turned again towards us, without looking in it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)