Pure enough to drink.
Although the word edible, meaning fit for eating, is a familiar term, its counterpart—potable, meaning fit for drinking—is not. Many words that derive from the same source as potable, however, are very familiar, including pot, potion, and poison. The ultimate source of these words is the Latin potare, meaning to drink, which actually gave rise to two other Latin words: polio and potus, both meaning a drink. From potus, English derived in the thirteenth century the word pot, meaning a cooking kettle (the other pot, the one that means marijuana, appeared in the 1930s as an abbreviated form of the Mexican Spanish name, potiguaya). From polio, the other Latin word meaning a drink, English derived in the late fourteenth century both potion and poison, originally synonyms that referred to any liquid mixture, whether intended to heal or harm. Gradually however, the words differentiated from one another as poison came to be associated with toxins, and potion with fairly benign beverages that, at worst, might make you fall in love with an evil prince. From the same source as potion and poison, the word potation also arose in the fourteenth century as a name for any alcoholic beverage; two hundred years later, in the sixteenth century, potation also inspired compotation, a drinking party characterized by loud carousing. Similarly, the word pot also became part of many sayings and idioms: potshot, for example, originated in the nineteenth century as a name for an unsporting shot fired at an ailing or out of season animal with the intention of merely filling the stove pot at home. The expression gone to pot arose from practice of taking the bones and scraps of a roast and throwing them into a pot to make soup (a fate slightly better than “going to the dogs”).
Suitable for drinking, especially pert, to water free of harmful organic or inorganic ingredients.