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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Descriptive \De*scrip"tive\, adjective [L. descriptivus: cf. F. descriptif.] Tending to describe; having the quality of representing; containing description; as, a descriptive figure; a descriptive phrase; a descriptive narration; a story descriptive of the age.
{Descriptive anatomy}, that part of anatomy which treats of the forms and relations of parts, but not of their textures.
{Descriptive geometry}, that branch of geometry. which treats of the graphic solution of problems involving three dimensions, by means of projections upon auxiliary planes. --Davies & Peck (Math. Dict. ) -- {De*scrip"tive*ly}, adverb -- {De*scrip"tive*ness}, noun
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
descriptive
adjective
1: serving to describe or inform or characterized by description; "the descriptive variable"; "a descriptive passage" [ant: {undescriptive}]
2: concerned with phenomena (especially language) at a particular period without considering historical antecedents; "synchronic linguistics"; "descriptive linguistics" [syn: {synchronic}] [ant: {diachronic}]
3: describing the structure of a language; "descriptive linguistics simply describes language" [ant: {prescriptive}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
43 Moby Thesaurus words for "descriptive": constructional, constructive, definitional, delineative, depictive, diagnostic, exegetic, expositive, expressive, faithful, glottochronological, grammatic, graphemic, graphic, hermeneutic, interpretational, interpretive, lexicographic, lexicological, lexicostatistical, lifelike, lingual, linguistic, metalinguistic, morphological, morphophonemic, naturalistic, philological, phonemic, phonetic, phonological, psycholinguistic, realistic, representative, semantic, semeiological, structural, symptomatological, syntactic, tropological, true to life, vivid, well-drawn
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |