eligible

From Middle French eligible, from Latin eligibilis, from ēligō (“select, choose”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɛl.ɪ.d͡ʒɪ.bəl/, /ˈɛl.ɪ.d͡ʒə.bəl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈɛl.ə.d͡ʒə.bəl/

  • Audio (Canada):

    (file)

• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈel.ə.d͡ʒə.bəl/

eligible (comparative more eligible, superlative most eligible)

1. Allowed to and meeting the necessary conditions required to participate in or be chosen for something
2. Worthy of being chosen (for marriage).

Used in the phrase eligible bachelor to mean “desirable male”, the corresponding term for a woman is nubile.

• illegible

eligible (plural eligibles)

1. One who is eligible.
   • 2007 October 3, Diane Ravitch, “Get Congress Out of the Classroom”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     Federal agencies report that only about 1 percent of eligible students take advantage of switching schools and fewer than 20 percent of eligibles receive extra tutoring.

Borrowed from Latin eligibilis.

eligible m or f (plural eligibles)

1. choosable; selectable (that one can choose)

• Frédéric Godefroy (1880–1902), “eligible”, in Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle […], Paris: F[riedrich] Vieweg; Émile Bouillon, →OCLC.

eligible m or f (masculine and feminine plural eligibles)

1. archaic form of elegible

• “eligible”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025