docile

From Middle English docyle, from Middle French docile, from Latin docilis, from docēre (“teach”). Compare Spanish dócil ("docile").

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdəʊ.saɪl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑ.səl/, /ˈdɑ.saɪl/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Rhymes: (US) -ɑːsəl

docile (comparative more docile, superlative most docile)

1. Ready to accept instruction or direction; obedient; subservient.

   Synonyms: amenable, compliant, teachable; see also Thesaurus:obedient

   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining clasped in one another’s arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence.
     He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her entreaty; and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a tremble, at the room in which he had been so long shut up, and where he had seen the picture in the glass, passed out with her into the hall.

   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], Emma: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC:

     Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition; was totally free from conceit; and only desiring to be guided by any one she looked up to.

2. Yielding to control or supervision, direction, or management.

   Synonyms: compliant, malleable, meek, submissive, tractable, manageable; see also Thesaurus:docile

   Antonyms: perverse, defiant, rebellious, wilful

   Such literature may well be anathema to those, who are too docile and petty for their own good.

• cleido-, coiled, coldie

Learned borrowing from Latin docilis.

• IPA^(key): /dɔ.sil/

• Audio:

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• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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• Rhymes: -il

docile (plural dociles)

1. docile

   Near-synonym: obéissant

• docilement
• docilité

• “docile”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

From Latin docilis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɔ.t͡ʃi.le/
• Rhymes: -ɔtʃile
• Hyphenation: dò‧ci‧le

docile m or f by sense (plural docili)

1. compliant, obedient, docile, meek

   Antonym: indocile

• docilità
• docilmente

• docile in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

docile

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of docilis