Notable means worth noticing or remembering, marking something as significant or distinguished. Noticeable means easy to see or spot, without any claim about importance. A grammar mistake can be noticeable without being notable, but a scientific breakthrough is usually both.
The core difference
Notable is about significance, while noticeable is simply about being easy to spot.
- notable — worth noticing or remembering; significant or distinguished: She made a notable contribution to the field of genetics.
- noticeable — easy to see or notice; obvious: There has been a noticeable improvement in her grades.
How to tell them apart
A simple test: could you replace the word with obvious or plain to see, without losing the meaning? If so, you want noticeable. If the sentence is really praising something as significant or worth remembering, you want notable, as in a notable achievement or a notable absence from a guest list.
The overlap trips people up because many notable things are also noticeable, a striking building might be both. But a small, easy-to-spot typo is noticeable without being notable, since nobody would call it significant.
