Utterly unpocketable
Inspiration for a word hit me today whilst reading some text by William Auld (who wrote so well!).
The word is poŝebla, the simplest translation of which is perhaps “pocketable”. The meaning is a description of something which is shaped in such a way that it is possible to put it in one’s pocketses (possessed by the spirit of Gollum for a second there).
ĝenerale, la melo ne estas poŝebla
generally, badgers are not pocketable (it is not possible to put badgers in one’s pockets)
And now for the derivation!
poŝo
-ebl
suffix meaning “possible to [root]” or “[root] can be done”
legebla
legible, possible to read
See this post for more information on “-ebl”.
As you’ll learn from the post about -ebl, it expects a verb at its behind. But poŝo is the noun form. So to get the proper interpretation of poŝebla, we must first interpret poŝi, the verbal form.
Check out this PMEG page, under the section “Verboj el ne-agaj radikoj” (“Verbs out of non-action roots”).
It shows a bunch of guidelines about interpreting the verb forms of naturally object type words (like pocket, stone, city).
I believe the most relevant examples are under this statement:
se la radiko montras ilon, aparaton aŭ simile…
if the root indicates a tool, apparatus/device or similar….
It goes on to explain that the verb form then means “to use the tool in its usual manner”. So “to pocket” is to put something in your pocket, or keep something in your pocket.
Therefore poŝebla is “possible to put/keep in your pocket”.
I thought it was quite a cool word, sort of like a whimsical version of portebla (portable, possible to carry).
Note that you don’t need this word to talk about things like “pocket dictionaries”, those can just be poŝvortaroj not poŝeblaj vortaroj.