られる

Etymology
From Classical Japanese, which followed and attached to the  of monograde, bigrade, , and  verbs.

As with other shimo nidan verbs, the original  was gradually lost as the   came to be used for both functions, realigning the conjugations, and the conjugation type shifted to, making the modern form.

Some linguists suggest that られる is a variant of, where a reduplicative "r" is added to avoid vowel clusters. (e.g. 食べる + れる → *tabe- + *-are- → *tabeare- + *taberare- → 食べられる)

Suffix

 * 1)  -able, -ible
 * 1)  -able, -ible
 * 1)  -able, -ible

Usage notes
Attaches only to the of Group II (ichidan) and Group III (irregular) verbs. The result is conjugated like a Group II (ichidan) verb.

The passive form of verbs from other conjugation classes are formed with instead of.

Recently in colloquial speech, used for the potential can be shortened to, e.g. , ,. This practice is called.

This word is morphologically an inflectional suffix. It is classified as in traditional Japanese grammar.