Cédible

Cédible is not a standard French word. It is not widely attested in major dictionaries, and in contemporary usage the expected adjective for “believable” is crédible. When the form cédible appears, it is usually as a nonce word or in a linguistic or fictional context to explore word formation rather than as an established term.

If coined, cédible would be formed from the verb céder (to yield or to transfer) with the suffix -ible, yielding a hypothetical meaning such as “capable of being ceded” or “able to be transferred.” In that sense, it would be distinct from crédible, which derives from croire and means “believable.” The two words would thus be etymologically unrelated despite their phonetic similarity.

Usage and reception: because cédible is not part of standard French, it is rarely used outside of experimental writing, discussions of morphology, or deliberate neologism demonstrations. In regular legal, administrative, or academic French, speakers would instead use explicit phrasing such as “peut être cédé” or established terms like “transférable” or “cessionnable” (where appropriate) to express the idea of transferability.

See also: crédible, crédibilité, cédé, céder. Note that the familiar term for believability remains crédible, while anything relating to transfer typically uses different vocabulary.

Example (hypothetical): Dans un essai linguistique, on pourrait proposer cédible comme néologisme pour illustrer la formation par dérivation.