The word "passably" is correct and can be used in written English.
It is an adverb meaning "in an adequate or satisfactory manner." For example: "He performed his duties passably, although not spectacularly."
The simplistic but roughly accurate rule of thumb I tend to repeat at parties is that, in presidential elections, the incumbent wins as long as he's passably popular and the economy has been growing, and he loses if he isn't and it hasn't.
Foreign donors and diplomats know not to utter the "R-word"—rebels when they meet government officials.The trouble really began in 2010, when the opposition boycotted elections which it said were flawed but which international observers judged to be passably fair.
Yet there is now a growing fear that failure in a country that has seen civil war, a royal coup, the abolition of the monarchy, huge protests and an ethnically based rebellion in recent years may spark a fresh crisis before long.On its first task, the government has done passably well.
Neither Afghanistan not Pakistan can be passably stable while Pakistan is so divided.
He learned to speak French passably, declared them a nation and gave the province a special seat at international gatherings.
Only in the past two years of UN administration have the East Timorese glimpsed a passably decent future.The new chief minister, Mari Alkatiri, accepts that East Timor will be dependent on foreign aid for several years.
Only JPMorgan Chase did passably well (see chart).
She was an intelligent girl, of an old theatrical family; reports speak of her as having "a pretty face and well-developed figure"—or "passably pretty and not much of an actress".
He admitted that Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, did passably well as a poet but complained that Surrey did not understand "perfite and trewe versifying"; that is, Surrey did not compose his English verses according to the principles of Latin and Greek quantitative prosody.
However, the competition did contain one head-scratcher and one passably ludicrous clunker.
The single "Gunga Din" sums up the contradictions, its passably buoyant chorus wedged between drearily skanking verses, like the fleeting flashes of glory peppering Pete Doherty and Carl Barât's bumpy shared histories.
