Movable

Movable

Adjective / Noun · /ˈmuː.və.bəl/

Definition

(Adjective) capable of being moved; not fixed in place; (of a religious feast or holiday) not fixed to the same date each year; (Noun, chiefly legal and Scottish law) a piece of movable property, as distinct from land or fixed property.

Origin

From move (from Old French mouvoir, from Latin movere, to move) + the suffix -able (capable of being). Movable Feast being a phrase used both literally for religious festivals with variable dates (Easter being the most significant) and famously in Ernest Hemingway's posthumous memoir A Moveable Feast (1964) about his time in Paris in the 1920s. The alternative spelling moveable (with an -e-) being also correct in British English.