reflective
adjective
Simple meaning
That reveals or shows.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rihflehktivSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹɪfˈlɛktɪv
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
Pondering, especially thinking back on the past.
That reflects, or redirects back to the source.
That reveals or shows; revealing; indicative of.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Pondering, especially thinking back on the past.
Used this way, reflective is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use reflective
- “A reflective surface.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Device that reflects radiation.
The fraction of radiant energy that is reflected from a surface.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The ratio of reflected to incident light.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: pondering or especially thinking back on the past
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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.