I wanted to explore the word suggestible because it tends to fall out of my brain. I'll be trying to reach for it, thinking, "Okay, it's that adjective for people that means you can just casually mention something or ask them a leading question and they're ready to say yes no matter what, and it sounds like susceptible, and kind of does mean susceptible but it's not that exactly, so... what is it?"

It's suggestible. 

Some pretty close synonyms include flexible; obedient; comp___nt ("willing to obey or follow rules"); pli___e ("easily bent, adaptable, easy to influence"); tr___able ("easy to manage, easy to control"); and im_____ionable ("easily accepting of others' opinions").

Let's take a closer look at suggestible and its base word suggest. They belong to a family of words from the Latin gerere, meaning "to bear, to carry, to carry on, to wage, or to perform."

Other members of the gerere family include
   digest;
   congest;
   ingest;
   register (literally "carry back");
   exaggerate (literally "carry toward");
   gesture;
   b___ geste (two words, French for "fine gesture: act of generosity");
   be___gerent (literally "carrying war" and meaning "angry, starting fights");
   and gest___ (literally "to bear, to be pregnant with" and meaning "to develop something slowly and thoughtfully, like a living creature soon to be born").

In the most literal sense, to suggest something is to "carry [it] from beneath." I love that: I imagine someone hiding a dessert or a bottle of wine beneath a table, then lifting it up and offering it. The best kind of suggestion. 

But suggestibility is pretty dark. It's less likely to be about winking and nudging chocolate cake toward people, and more likely to be about making them waste money, believe lies, misremember their own experiences, feel sick when they aren't, give false testimony, or confess to crimes they didn't commit.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) 

(Source)

"Suggestible" dates back to the late 1800s in English.

It first described people who were easy to hypnotize. Picture the classic hypnotist telling someone: "You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy." And at this suggestion, the suggestible (hypnotized) person obeys, drooping their eyes, then does whatever else the hypnotist tells them to do.

The meaning of "suggestible" loosened up over the years, and now you can describe anyone as suggestible if they're easy to convince or easy to command, as if all you have to do is suggest an idea and they readily accept it.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "a suggestible child;" "He's so suggestible."

Other forms: 

The noun is "suggestibility."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, semi-common word "suggestible" when you need to describe someone who's especially vulnerable to suggestions, persuasions, or commands. Often, those people are children or teens. If you call an adult suggestible, it can sound insulting.

We most often talk about suggestible people, and sometimes about their suggestible minds, opinions, beliefs, or memories.

And we typically point out suggestibility because it creates problems. That is, when suggestible people are manipulated, they might make poor decisions, believe false judgments about themselves, experience false memories, or even give false confessions.

examples:

"California has already passed a law against offering free toys with any meal that doesn't reach a nutritional standard, in recognition of just how dense and suggestible is your average child diner.''
  — Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 23 June 2010

"Here's what happens when doctors can't explain our persistent and impairing symptoms: We become suggestible. We follow fads... There’s no scientific proof that most people should follow the gluten-free diet."
  — Heather Abel, Slate, 5 December 2014

has this page helped you understand "suggestible"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "suggestible" without saying "open to suggestion" or "malleable."

try it out:

As we've seen, the word "suggestible" can describe some pretty dark and upsetting situations. But it can also be used in a silly way. Let's do that.

Fill in the blanks: "Only highly suggestible souls would mistake (this bad, mediocre, or fake thing) for a (certain type of thing)."

Example 1: "Only highly suggestible souls would mistake this frizzy, plastic-smelling set of Temu hair extensions for human hair."

Example 2: "The Quesarito: The flour tortilla is so neatly folded, I can't help but suspect this burrito-quesadilla hybrid was spit out in a factory... Only highly suggestible souls would mistake this for a quesadilla."
  — Tim Carman, Washington Post, 23 February 2018

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Coaxed into a Haiku!"

I'll give you the basics of a news story, and you boil the story down into a haiku. You can check out some examples here.

Feel free to take full creative license, omitting or warping the facts, adding dialogue, using slang, cursing, and/or burying the lede. Just do your best to fit the story into a three-line poem of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively.

Try this one today...

"Feliks the eagle is back home in Serbia after a kidnap ordeal in the Middle East. Feliks's journey resembles a Hollywood movie script, with kidnappers, smugglers and clandestine border crossings. The year-old eastern imperial eagle from Serbia started flying in August and later set off on his first migratory flight toward the Middle East, only to be captured by poachers, sold illegally and retrieved in a daring cross-border mission."
  — Jovana Gec, Associated Press, 30 June 2026

To see one possible haiku, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. A near opposite of SUGGESTIBLE could be

A. CONTRARY or ANTAGONISTIC.
B. ILL-TIMED or ANACHRONISTIC.
C. SELF-OBSESSED or NARCISSISTIC.

2. ChatGPT has proven dangerous for suggestible folks, such as the man who _____.

A. got so furious at the chatbot's confidently incorrect responses that he smashed his laptop with his fist, injuring himself
B. took its enthusiastic praise at face value and truly believed he had invented his own brilliant branch of mathematics
C. burned through his entire life's savings trying to litigate an end to the chatbot's scraping of sensitive data and abuse of copyrighted works

Answers to the review questions: 1. A 2. B From the game: If you're happy with your haiku, then you succeeded! Here's mine:    Poachers' hands, strange lands,    antiheroes... oh, baby,    let my eagle go.

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.