The horribility of English language

Pretty much every adjective that ends in the suffix -able or -ible gives rise to a related noun:

• corruptible becomes corruptibility
• mutable becomes mutability
• respectable becomes respectability
• irritable becomes irritability
• gullible becomes gullibility

There are only two exceptions, as far as I'm aware: we have horrible and terrible, but no horribility or terribility. Now why would that be?

These words seem to have another strange aspect to them. If something is irritable then it is not able to irritate but inclined to be irritated. If I am respectable then I'm not able to respect, but inclined to be respected. The -able ending does not generally denote ability.

But horrible doesn't mean inclined to be horrified; it really does mean able to horrify. And terrible doesn't mean inclined to be terrified; it means able to terrify. In other words, these two exceptions to the rule about cognate nouns also seem to be exceptions with respect to what type of property they describe.

Are these two oddities related somehow?

Solution 1:

I have to agree with Papa Poule that the question arises from a false analysis: horrible and terrible are not -able/-ible words in quite the sense you describe, and the corresponding noun derivation doesn't apply.

Off the top of my head, I'd say ostensible might be placed in this group, and there may well be others. Conceivably the distinction could come from being words adapted from existing Latin constructions (horribilis etc), rather than constructed later from English elements (so the verb in question is horreo rather than horrify, etc). Although that's just a guess, so almost certainly wrong...