apertive

From Latin apertūra (“opening”) +‎ -ive.

apertive (comparative more apertive, superlative most apertive)

1. (medicine) Causing the body to open; dissolving blockages or having a purgative or diuretic effect.
   • 1657, A Medicinal Dispensatory, containing the whole body of physick, page 261:

     Both its root and seeds are hydragogeous, and very apertive, and therefuore usefull in hydroptical and watry diseases.

   • 1666, William Boghurst, Loimographia, Or an Experimentall Relation of the Plague, of what hath happened Remarkable in the last Plague in the City of London:

     Oppression and stopping at Brest and Stomach. Though very few live when they come to these things, yet here and there one makes a shift to creep over this and many other threatning signes; but you must not goe about to cure this as you doe other stoppings in the stomach, as by squills oximells, bomits, but by apertive medicines as this:

   • 1855, Cuthbert William Johnson, The Farmer's and Planter's Encyclopedia of Rural Affairs, page 179:

     The wine made from this sap is said to be apertive, and detersive.

   • 1923, Joseph William Mellor, A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry:

     I have found it in the waters of Hornhausen, which owe to this salt their apertive and diuretic properties.

2. Pertaining to or using an aperture; apertural.
   • 1977, T. R. Thomas, M. B. King, Surface topography in engineering, page 42:

     In this part the author leaves the stylus method and passes on to the interference method, which is very valuable because it can resolve scratches down to a width of about 0.00002" or 0.00003", provided that a high apertive microscope objective is used.

   • 1980, John H. Menkes, Barry S. Siegal, Remote Sensing in Geology, page 86:

     Seasat was launched in June 1978 and carries a synthetic apertive radar.

   • 1988, Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, page 117:

     From the apertive field, equivalent magnetic currents are obtained using the principle of equivalence.

3. Tending to open.
   • 1969, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, page 1308:

     Prefractures are weak or apertive when the prefixed vowel has a greater closure formed by the tongue or lips than the original vowel, so that the result is a progressive opening.

   • 1983, The Publishers Weekly - Volume 224, page 56:

     Eberhart is a philosopher-poet whose avowed ambition is “to open/ Poetry to apertive speculation.”

   • 2013, Doc Togden, an odd boy, page 105:

     I was imbued with an amorphous sense of capability — but that word makes little sense to me. It was a sense of apertive aptness.

apertive (plural apertives)

1. A substance that can be used medicinally for its apertive effect.
   • 1942, Natural History Society of Jamaica, Natural History Notes, page 149:

     The Love Bush seems to have been used in olden days in medicine, for Browne in 1789 writes: "It has been always esteemed as a diuretic and apertive, and formerly used as an ingredient in come of the compositions of the shops".

   • 1979, Jane I. LaRue, Guide to selected medicinal herbs, page 10:

     Gentian has been used for centuries as a tonic to aid digestion; and it is currently employed in the manufacture of apertives and bitters, notably Gentiane, a Swiss digestive liquor.

   • 1999, J. C. Dagar, Plant Resources of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, page 475:

     The bark is also used in a liquid given as an apertive to horses and cattle.