Meaning & use
presentable
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Neat and clean enough in appearance to be seen by other people without embarrassment.
Grammar: Can follow a linking verb or come before a noun: she looked presentable; a presentable outfit.
Patterns
- look presentable
- make yourself presentable
- make something presentable
Give me five minutes to change my shirt and I will be presentable.
The kitchen was a mess, but we tidied it enough to make it presentable before the guests came.
He found a presentable jacket at the back of the wardrobe.
adjectivecomparable
Good enough in quality to be shown or handed over to others, though not outstanding.
Grammar: Describes work or results rather than people: a presentable draft.
Patterns
- a presentable result
The report is rough, but it is presentable enough to send to the committee.
After a few edits, the photos looked presentable on the website.
Word forms
| comparative | more presentable |
|---|---|
| superlative | most presentable |
Common combinations
- look presentable
- I just want to look presentable for the interview.
- make yourself presentable
- Go and make yourself presentable before the visitors arrive.
- reasonably presentable
- The garden was reasonably presentable after an hour of weeding.
- barely presentable
- His shoes were barely presentable after the muddy walk.
- a presentable appearance
- A presentable appearance matters in a customer-facing job.
Synonyms and how they differ
- neat
- Neat stresses tidiness and order, while presentable only says the appearance is acceptable to others.
- respectable
- Respectable suggests social approval of character or dress, whereas presentable is just about looking fit to be seen.
- decent
- Decent is looser and can describe quality or morals, while presentable focuses on how something looks.
- smart
- Smart implies noticeable effort and style, which presentable does not claim.
Opposites
Word family
- presentably adverb
- in a way that looks acceptable
- presentability noun
- the quality of looking acceptable
- present verb
- to show or give something to others
- presentation noun
- the way something is shown or offered
Commonly confused: presentable or representable?
presentable vs representable
Representable means able to be depicted or stood for by something else, and has nothing to do with looking tidy.
Practice
Wanting to look ___ for the interview, Maya pressed her shirt and polished her shoes.
Choose one answer.
After look we need an adjective, and presentable means neat enough to be seen. Presentation is a noun and presently is an adverb, so neither fits after look.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “presentable”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.