Adjective: distinctive
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more distinctive |
| Superlative | most distinctive |
Sample Sentences
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a product in distinctive packaging
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Our Apparell was giuen vs as a signe distinctiue to discern betwixt sex and sex. [1583, Philip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses, Folio V:]
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[…]more judicious and distinctive heads... [1650, Thomas Browne, chapter 3, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 75:]
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his distinctive bass voice
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Wordsworth's distinctive work was a war with pomp and pretence, and a display of the majesty of simple feelings and humble hearts. [1856, John Ruskin, Modern Painters […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, part IV (Of Many Things), page 293:]
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The refugees... at length ceased to exist as a distinctive body among the people. [1867, Samuel Smiles, chapter XVII, in The Huguenots, page 432:]
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These are the main distinctive accents, and by stopping at them... the reader will do justice to the sense. [1874, Andrew Bruce Davidson, Introductory Hebrew Grammar, page 27:]
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Normally we symbolize only phonemes (distinctive features) so far as we can determine them. [1927, L. Bloomfield et al., Language, number 3, page 129:]
Adjectives inflected like distinctive
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Latin distinctus, perfect passive participle of distinguere (to push apart, to divide; see distinct) + -ive (forming adjectives signifying relation or tendency to). Cognate with French distinctif and Medieval Latin distinctivus. See: Latin Adjectives '
distinctus', French Adjectives '
distinctif'.
Verbs referencing "distinctive"
Finnish Adjectives
distinktiivinen.