descriptive
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Of or about an approach to linguistic analysis that aims at the description of a language's forms, structures and usage.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihskriptivSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪskˈɹɪptɪv
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or relating to an approach to linguistic analysis that aims at the description of a language's forms, structures and usage
Of, relating to, or providing a description.
grammar
Of an adjective, stating an attribute of the associated noun (as heavy in the heavy dictionary).
noun
grammar
An adjective (or other descriptive word)
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or relating to an approach to linguistic analysis that aims at the description of a language's forms, structures and usage
Used this way, descriptive is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Relating
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A subordinate clause that does not limit or restrict the meaning of the noun phrase it modifies.
The geometry of properties that remain invariant under projection.
A grammar that is produced by descriptive linguistics.
A description (at a given point in time) of a language with respect to its phonology and morphology and syntax and semantics without value judgments.
The branch of anthropology that provides scientific description of individual human societies.
An adjective that ascribes to its noun the value of an attribute of that noun (e.g., `a nervous person' or `a musical speaking voice').
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- linguisticadjective
- linguisticsnoun
- anatomynoun
- analyticaladjective
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.