Adjacent Words

Illustrative definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ILLUS'TRATIVE, a. Having the quality of elucidating and making clear what is obscure; as an argument or simile illustrative of the subject.
1. Having the quality of rendering glorious, or of displaying glory.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: clarifying by use of examples [syn: exemplifying, illustrative]
2: serving to demonstrate [syn: demonstrative, illustrative]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1643 serving, tending, or designed to illustrate <illustrative examples> • illustratively adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (often foll. by of) serving as an explanation or example. Derivatives: illustratively adv.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Illustrative Il*lus"tra*tive, a. 1. Tending or designed to illustrate, exemplify, or elucidate. 2. Making illustrious. [Obs.]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you use something as an illustrative example, or for illustrative purposes, you use it to show that what you are saying is true or to make your meaning clearer. (FORMAL) A second illustrative example was taken from The Observer newspaper... ADJ: oft ADJ of n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Explanatory, elucidative.

Moby Thesaurus

allegorizing, annotative, apish, clarifying, critical, delineatory, demonstrative, demythologizing, depictive, echoic, editorial, elucidative, embodying, enlightening, euhemeristic, exegetic, exemplificative, explaining, explanatory, explicative, explicatory, expositive, expository, figurative, glossarial, graphic, ideographic, illuminating, illuminative, illustrational, imitative, incarnating, limning, mimetic, mimish, onomatopoeic, personifying, pictographic, pictorial, portraying, rationalistic, rationalizing, representational, representative, representing, scholiastic, simulative, symbolizing, typifying, vivid