There is a large class of words ending either in able or ible, amounting to more than sixteen hundred. For these we know of no general rule which can be given, that would readily indicate the proper termination. In practice, writers and printers, with rare exceptions, are obliged at times to depend on something besides memory to secure correctness; and if the dictionary is not at hand, the wrong termination may—as in fact it often does—get into print. So excellent a work as “The American First Class Book” prints an extract from Webster’s Plymouth oration thus:

If any practices exist, contrary to the principles of justice and humanity, within the reach of our laws or our influence, we are inexcusible if we do not exert ourselves to restrain and abolish them. {p155}

And in a periodical which is sent broadcast over the United States, occurs the following paragraph (April 24, 1888), copied from a report made by Henry Clay in 1838:

That authors and inventors have, according to the practice among civilized nations, a property in the respective productions of their genius is incontestible, etc.

We append below, for convenient reference, a catalogue of the words referred to, including (1) those in present use; (2) those that are rare; and (3) the obsolete. The latter often occur in reprints, and are sometimes resuscitated or galvanized for a present purpose,—as, for instance, in a recent popular novel, of wide circulation, there occurs three or more times, the word “ineluctable,” denoted by Webster as obsolete. We may have omitted some words that should have been inserted, but believe we have accomplished our object within very negligible limits of error.

A word in parenthesis indicates a various mode of spelling the word immediately preceding.