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viable

/ˈvaɪəbl//ˈvaɪəbl/·adjective
capable of working successfully; able to survive or be carried out
Fig. 1 — Two seeds come up side by side, and at first they're indistinguishable.
01Definition

Viable means capable of living — literally, from the French vie, 'life'. A viable seed can germinate; a viable business can sustain itself; a viable plan can actually be carried out. The word draws a hard line between ideas that merely sound good and those that can survive contact with reality: many proposals are attractive, fewer are viable. In biology and medicine it keeps its literal sense of 'able to survive'.

02In use
  • iSolar power is now commercially viable across much of the world, though its intermittent output still demands storage.
  • iiThe committee concluded the proposal was imaginative but not viable: its funding model had never been plausible.
  • iiiSeeds stored in the vault remain viable for decades.
03Collocations
  • a viable alternative
  • commercially viable
  • economically viable
  • a viable option

Family viability (noun) · viably (adverb) · unviable (adjective)

04Relations

=feasible, workable, practicable, sustainable, achievable

≠unviable, impractical, unworkable

06TOEFL & IELTS

Indispensable for IELTS Writing Task 2 solution paragraphs: 'a viable alternative/solution/option' is among the strongest collocations you can deploy. TOEFL passages use it in both senses — economic viability of technologies and biological viability of organisms — so read the context. The noun is 'viability'; the antonym 'unviable' (or 'non-viable' in biology).

07Asked
What is the difference between viable and feasible?
Feasible asks 'can it be done?'; viable asks 'can it survive and keep working?'. A plan can be feasible — physically possible to carry out — yet not viable, because it could not sustain itself once running. Building a shop is feasible; a shop with no customers is not viable. Feasible is about the doing; viable is about the lasting, which is why viable is the harder test to pass.
What does viable mean?
Capable of surviving or working — literally 'able to live', from French vie, 'life'. A viable seed can germinate; a viable business can sustain itself; a viable plan can actually be carried out. The word draws a hard line between ideas that merely sound good and those that can survive contact with reality. The scene above is the test: any seed can sprout, but the viable one is the one still growing after the second storm.
What does 'a viable option' mean?
A choice that could genuinely work, not just one that sounds appealing — an alternative able to survive being acted on. It is among the strongest phrases you can put in a solutions essay ('a viable alternative to fossil fuels') because it quietly promises more than 'a good idea': it claims the option would actually hold up. The unspoken contrast is with attractive plans that collapse the moment they are tried.
What does viability mean?
The noun of viable — the quality of being able to survive or succeed. Commercial viability asks whether a venture can pay its own way; in biology, viability is an organism's or seed's capacity to live. It is the measurable version of the adjective: you assess the viability of a plan the way you would test whether a seed will still grow. The negative is unviable or, in biology, non-viable.
What is the difference between viable and sustainable?
Viable means able to survive and work at all; sustainable means able to keep going over the long term without exhausting its support. A business can be viable this year yet not sustainable if it burns through resources to stay afloat. Viable is the threshold — it works; sustainable is the endurance test — it keeps working. The two often travel together, but sustainable sets the higher bar.