I. ˈvīəbəl adjective
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from vie life (from Latin vita ) + -able — more at vital
1.
a. : capable of living
the skin graft was viable
viable cancer cells
a viable infant
b. of a fetus : having attained such form and development of organs as to be normally capable of living outside the uterus
a 7-month viable fetus
2. : capable of growing or developing
viable seeds
viable eggs
3. : affecting the imagination, mind, or senses as real, genuine, artistically whole, or important : living
make the life of industry and the city viable to the imagination — L.A.Fielder
make viable for their students the great cultural heritage — J.W.Dodds
the poet … is to make philosophic content more viable by addition of sensuous and emotional qualities — John Dewey
4.
a. : capable of being put into practice : workable
a viable middle road … between the grim alternatives of appeasement and all-out war — F.W.Riggs
even brigands can make a viable agreement provided it embodies a common purpose — New Republic
b. : not self-contradictory : not lacking significance or consequences : capable of conceptual or aesthetic development
offers a viable alternative to other world views — J.W.Nixon
anthropology is a viable science — E.A.Hoebel
if skepticism is a viable enterprise — F.A.Olafson
the novel is the only major art form that has come down to us from the nineteenth century in a viable condition — Arnold Hauser
5. : capable of existence and development as a relatively independent social, economic, or political unit
adopted the politically and economically superior culture … and set about transforming it into a viable tropical civilization — Gilberto Freyre
an artificial and hardly viable state — E.K.Lindley
reapportioning the country into 14 large and viable states — Time
• vi·a·bly -blē, -li adverb
II. adjective
: having a reasonable chance of succeeding
a viable candidate