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TANGIBLE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Capable of being treated as fact
Example:
his brief time as Prime Minister brought few real benefits to the poor
Synonyms:
real; tangible
Classified under:
Similar:
concrete (capable of being perceived by the senses; not abstract or imaginary)
Derivation:
tangibleness (the quality of being perceivable by touch)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Capable of being perceived; especially capable of being handled or touched or felt
Example:
a palpable lie
Synonyms:
palpable; tangible
Classified under:
Also:
perceptible (capable of being perceived by the mind or senses)
Derivation:
tangibility; tangibleness (the quality of being perceivable by touch)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Perceptible by the senses especially the sense of touch
Example:
skin with a tangible roughness
Synonyms:
tangible; touchable
Classified under:
Similar:
tactile; tactual (producing a sensation of touch)
Also:
concrete (capable of being perceived by the senses; not abstract or imaginary)
Antonym:
intangible (incapable of being perceived by the senses especially the sense of touch)
Derivation:
tangibility; tangibleness (the quality of being perceivable by touch)
Sense 4
Meaning:
(of especially business assets) having physical substance and intrinsic monetary value
Example:
tangible assets such as machinery
Classified under:
Similar:
real ((of property) fixed or immovable)
realizable (capable of being realized)
Domain category:
business; business enterprise; commercial enterprise (the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects)
Antonym:
intangible ((of especially business assets) not having physical substance or intrinsic productive value)
Context examples:
A Burkitt lymphoma characterized by the presence of a uniform malignant lymphocytic infiltrate that is composed of medium-sized cells with round nuclei and multiple basophilic nucleoli, abundant mitotic figures, and a starry-sky pattern due to the presence of multiple tangible body macrophages.
(Classical Burkitt Lymphoma, NCI Thesaurus)
Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself, arms in the air, pressing it back from him as it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
This troubled me the more for a long time, because I had soon told Steerforth, from whom I could no more keep such a secret, than I could keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the two old women Mr. Mell had taken me to see; and I was always afraid that Steerforth would let it out, and twit him with it.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Some were condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate; others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions; others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from foundering.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
White Fang sensed the coming calamity, even before there was tangible evidence of it.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Jehovah was anthropomorphic because he could address himself to the Jews only in terms of their understanding; so he was conceived as in their own image, as a cloud, a pillar of fire, a tangible, physical something which the mind of the Israelites could grasp.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
The notion originated with Daisy's suggestion that we hire five bathrooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible form as "a place to have a mint julep."
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
