Literary notes about amenable (AI summary)
Writers use "amenable" to capture the idea of being responsive, pliable, or subject to external influence, whether that influence comes in the form of law, instruction, or personal persuasion. In some texts, it denotes a person's submission to legal or authoritative frameworks, as when a captain is described as subject to common law [1] or when citizens are said to be accountable to prosecution [2]. Meanwhile, the term also illustrates a natural capacity for influence or transformation, portraying characters who are receptive to advice or reason [3, 4, 5]. Authors extend its reach into political and abstract discussions—referencing not only the subjection of individuals to legislated norms [6, 7, 8] but also the way ideas and substances can be examined and modified [9, 10, 11].
- In the treatment of those under his authority, the captain is amenable to the common law, like any other person.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana - He would then be merely a private citizen, and as such amenable to prosecution.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce - ‘I say again,’ said my aunt, ‘nobody knows what that man’s mind is except myself; and he’s the most amenable and friendly creature in existence.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - He ought, therefore, to be both naturally gifted and amenable to instruction.
— from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio - I have always, I know, been too amenable to the suggestions of my circumstances.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - We hold them amenable to the laws when made, but allow them no share in making them.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - That those held amenable to laws should have a share in framing them.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - There is a larger meaning of the word proof, in which this question is as amenable to it as any other of the disputed questions of philosophy.
— from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill - Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof.
— from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill - But these gentle, easy-going garments, with their pliant pleats and amenable button holes, could not survive.
— from Bizarre by Lawton Mackall
