evaluatable

Evaluatable is an adjective describing something that can be evaluated or assessed. In mathematics and computer science, an expression, program, or computation is considered evaluatable if its value can be determined through a finite sequence of operations given appropriate inputs. The concept also applies in decision analysis and statistics, where a model or hypothesis is evaluatable if it can be tested or measured against data.

In programming, an evaluatable expression is one that can be reduced to a value according to the language’s evaluation rules, typically without requiring external interaction. Pure expressions in functional languages are often treated as evaluatable, while expressions with side effects require careful handling of state. For example, the expression 2 + 3 is evaluatable to 5, whereas an expression containing an unbound variable may not be evaluatable in a given context.

Limitations exist: some problems are not evaluatable by any algorithm (undecidable) or are only partially evaluatable due to resource constraints such as time or space. In practice, whether something is treated as evaluatable depends on assumptions about inputs, environment, and computational feasibility.

Related terms include evaluability (the property of being evaluatable), evaluation (the process of determining a value or outcome), and evaluand (the object of an evaluation). The term is used across disciplines to contrast computable or answerable cases with those that remain uncertain or intractable.