Noah Webster
Amenable
AME'NABLE, adjective
1. In old law, easy to be led; governable, as a woman by her husband. [This sense is obsolete.]
2. Liable to answer; responsible; answerable; liable to be called to account; as, every man is amenable to the laws.
We retain this idiom in the popular phrase, to bring in, to make answerable; as a man is brought in to pay the debt of another.