eligible

See also: éligible

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (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/

Adjective

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).

Usage notes

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

Synonyms

• choosable
• licensed
• qualified

Antonyms

• ineligible
• unqualified

Derived terms

• eligibleness
• noneligible
• reeligible
• supereligible
• ultraeligible
• uneligible

Related terms

• elect
• elegant
• eligibility
• eligibly
• elite

Translations

meeting the necessary requirements to participate in or be chosen for something — see also electable,‎ qualified,‎ apt,‎ applicable

• Bulgarian: приемлив (bg) (priemliv), подходящ (bg) (podhodjašt)
• Catalan: elegible
• Danish: valgbar, kvalificeret
• Finnish: oikeutettu (fi), sovelias (fi), sopiva (fi), kelvollinen (fi)
• French: éligible (fr), admissible (fr)
• Galician: elixíbel (gl) m or f
• German: berechtigt (de), infrage kommend, geeignet (de), zulässig (de), zulassungsfähig
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: αἱρετός (hairetós)

• Hiligaynon: dápat
• Hungarian: jogosult (hu), alkalmas (hu), megfelelő (hu), szóba jöhető
• Interlingua: eligibile
• Italian: eleggibile (it), idoneo (it), qualificato (it)
• Japanese: 適任な (ja) (tekinin na), 有資格の (ja) (yūshikaku no), 選ばれるべき (ja) (erabareru beki)
• Korean: 적격(適格)의 (jeokgyeog-ui), 적임(適任)의 (jeogim-ui)
• Manx: yn-reih
• Māori: māraurau
• Norwegian: egna

  Bokmål: valgbar

• Polish: gotowy (pl) m
• Portuguese: elegível (pt)
• Romanian: eligibil (ro) m or n
• Russian: го́дный (ru) (gódnyj), приго́дный (ru) (prigódnyj), жела́тельный (ru) (želátelʹnyj), подходя́щий (ru) (podxodjáščij), прие́млемый (ru) (prijémlemyj)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: погодан, пожељан, подобан, прикладан

  Latin: pogodan (sh), poželjan (sh), podoban (sh), prikladan (sh)

• Spanish: idóneo (es), eligible
• Telugu: తగిన (te) (tagina)

worthy of being chosen (for marriage)

• Danish: passende, attråværdig
• Finnish: kelpoinen (fi)
• Galician: elixíbel (gl)
• German: heiratswürdig, begehrt (de)
• Hungarian: partiképes (hu)

See also

• illegible

Noun

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.

Translations

one who is eligible

• German: Berechtigte m or f
• Japanese: 有資格者 (yūshikakusha)

Middle French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin eligibilis.

Adjective

eligible m or f (plural eligibles)

1. choosable; selectable (that one can choose)

References

• 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.

Spanish

Adjective

eligible m or f (masculine and feminine plural eligibles)

1. archaic form of elegible

Further reading

• “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