tangibility

Meanings

1. 1noununcountable

   The quality of being able to be touched or physically felt.

   Grammar: Uncountable: the tangibility of the object; no plural.

   Patterns

   • the tangibility of something

   Children learn well from the tangibility of real objects.

   The sculptor valued the tangibility of clay over a digital image.

   Readers still enjoy the tangibility of a printed book.

2. 2noununcountable

   The quality of being clear, real and definite enough to be measured or proved.

   Grammar: Uncountable and abstract: the tangibility of the results.

   Patterns

   • the tangibility of something

   Investors wanted greater tangibility in the project's outcomes.

   The tangibility of the evidence persuaded the committee.

   A lack of tangibility made the benefits hard to explain.

Common combinations

lack of tangibility

A lack of tangibility makes services hard to market.

the tangibility of the results

The tangibility of the results encouraged the team.

physical tangibility

She misses the physical tangibility of paper letters.

add tangibility

Photographs add tangibility to the story.

Synonyms and how they differ

concreteness

Concreteness stresses being specific rather than vague, while tangibility stresses being touchable or measurable.

physicality

Physicality focuses on the body or material presence, whereas tangibility also covers clear, real outcomes.

palpability

Palpability is more literary and suggests something so strong it can almost be felt, such as tension.

Opposites

Word family

tangible adjective

able to be touched or clearly seen to be real

tangibly adverb

in a clear, real way

intangible adjective

not able to be touched or measured

intangibility noun

the quality of being intangible

Commonly confused: tangibility or tangent?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “tangibility”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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