colourable

adj

1. (not-comparable, obsolete)Colourful.
2. (not-comparable)Apparently true; specious; potentially justifiable.

   “Doth the master make any bargaine, or dispatch that pleaseth not? it is immediately smothered and suppressed, soone after forging causes, and devising colourable excuses, to excuse the want of execution or answer.”

   “they told him their comming was for some extraordinary tooles and shift of apparell; by this colourable excuse, they obtained 6. or 7. more to their confederacie […].”

   “These three examples have what may be called a 'colourable' claim for a public justification: they do not appear to us as checkerboard statues because, looking at the distinctions they draw, we presume the required justification does exist.”

3. (archaic, not-comparable, sometimes)Deceptive; fake, misleading.

   “Glauce, what needs this colourable word, / To cloke the cause, that hath it selfe bewrayd?”

4. (archaic, not-comparable, sometimes)Deceptive; fake, misleading.
5. (not-comparable)That can be coloured.

   “This matter, however, is not itself coloured, but is only capable of exhibiting colours, by the addition of other matters : and hence we have ventured to call it the colourable, rather than the colouring parts of the plant, by which we merely indicate its property of becoming coloured, but not its actual possession of colour.”

   “These results were discovered whilst investigating uniquely edge colourable graphs.”

   “A circle graph with no cycle of length four is colourable with three colours.”

   “Take a look at the free colouring page application available at Kidopo[…]This service offers all the essential colouring tools _^([sic]) a pen, a pencil, colouring palette etc _ and presents a variety of colourable pictures for helping the child simulate a real colouring experience.”