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restrictive. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
restrictive, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
restrictive in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
restrictive you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle French restrictif.
Morphologically restrict + -ive.
Pronunciation
Adjective
restrictive (comparative more restrictive, superlative most restrictive)
- Confining, limiting, containing within defined bounds.
1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 , New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome.
2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 7:The pinnacle of the effort to fix restrictive meanings to a set of terminology can be found in two papers in American Speech by Feinsilver (1979, 1980).
- (Of clothing) limiting free and easy bodily movement.
Derived terms
Translations
Noun
restrictive (plural restrictives)
- (grammar) A clause that narrows the meaning of a noun or noun phrase.
2013, Noel Burton-Roberts, Analysing Sentences, page 210:[…] a couple of further differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses: (1) in contrast with restrictives, the wh-phrase in non-restrictives cannot be ellipted; […]
French
Adjective
restrictive
- feminine singular of restrictif