pierceable

The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million — a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will.

The Portrait of a Lady 2003

The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million -- a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will.

The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 Henry James 1879

Here is how it works: there are 675k immigration visas authorized each year by the law, in what’s called a ‘pierceable cap’. 480k of those are based on family – which is the part that is pierceable, because the ‘immediate relatives’ of US citizens are numerically unlimited (spouses, kids, parents).

Matthew Yglesias » Climate Migration 2010

Over the past 20 years, we’ve admitted roughly 20 million immigrants under the 1990 Act’s pierceable cap, and we’ve tolerated the settling of at least 12 million illegal aliens plus another 2 million or so H-1Bs, cumulative.

Matthew Yglesias » Sleep Deprivation 2010

Cf. "iolly" at 101.1: 8) 5 Did spread so broad that heaven's light did hide, did > [they did] 6 Not pierceable with power of any star: pierceable > able to be pierced

The Faerie Queene — Volume 01 Edmund Spenser