Literary notes about Ascribable (AI summary)
In literature, “ascribable” functions as a precise adjective that links a particular outcome or characteristic to its underlying cause. Its usage spans a variety of contexts—from attributing public health improvements, such as the decrease in smallpox due to vaccination [1], to distinguishing moral or historical responsibility, as when misfortune is imputed to an individual’s actions [2] or a nation's decisions [3]. The word also appears in scientific and analytical texts, where phenomena like sediment deposition [4] or architectural faults [5] are clearly traced back to specific sources. In doing so, authors employ “ascribable” to underscore the relationship between cause and effect, thereby enhancing the clarity and specificity of their arguments.
- A confident opinion is expressed that the decrease of small-pox in the metropolis is ascribable to the extension of vaccination.
— from A supplementary report on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns. by Edwin Chadwick - In so far as this great public misfortune can be imputed to anyone man—to no one was it more ascribable than to Phocion.
— from The Historians' History of the World in Twenty-Five Volumes, Volume 04 Greece to the Roman Conquest - The glory of saving the situation is principally ascribable to San Martín.
— from Notes on the History of Argentine Independence by Charles W. Whittemore - In general the category III provinces are dominated by sediments ascribable to the graywacke suite of Pettijohn (1957).
— from The Floors of the Ocean: 1. The North AtlanticText to accompany the physiographic diagram of the North Atlantic by Bruce C. Heezen - Their destruction and abandonment are ascribable, not so much to any engineering defect, as to the disruption of the village
— from Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 by Tennent, James Emerson, Sir
