passable

What it means

1. That may be passed or traversed.
2. Tolerable; adequate; no more than satisfactory.

   AIs are no longer just producing passable five-paragraph essays. Now they’re excelling at the SAT, “earning” a score of 1410.

   2023 March 21, Ian Bogost, “Is This the Singularity for Standardized Tests?”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2023

   1 more example

   The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.

   2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

   Synonyms: satisfactory

3. human sciencesable to "pass", or be accepted as a member of a race, sex or other group to which society would not otherwise regard one as belonging.

   The idea of something, or someone, being unusual and sexual is intoxicating. I concluded that if I ever met a very passable transsexual and we were attracted to one another, I'd go bisexual and pursue the relationship.

   2014, Paul Stryker, Confessions of a Sex Offender, page 33

In a sentence

The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.

2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

Where it comes from

1. Frenchpassable
2. Englishpassable

From French passable, equivalent to pass + -able.