Adjacent Words

Prescriptive definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PRESCRIP'TIVE, a. Consisting in or acquired by immemorial use and enjoyment; as a prescriptive right or title.
The right to be drowsy in protracted toil, has become prescriptive.
1. Pleading the continuance and authority of custom.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: pertaining to giving directives or rules; "prescriptive grammar is concerned with norms of or rules for correct usage" [syn: prescriptive, normative] [ant: descriptive]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1748 1. serving to prescribe <prescriptive rules of usage> 2. acquired by, founded on, or determined by prescription or by long-standing custom • prescriptively adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 prescribing. 2 Linguistics concerned with or laying down rules of usage. 3 based on prescription (prescriptive right). 4 prescribed by custom. Derivatives: prescriptively adv. prescriptiveness n. prescriptivism n. prescriptivist n. & adj. Etymology: LL praescriptivus (as PRESCRIBE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Prescriptive Pre*scrip"tive, a. [L. praescriptivus of a demurrer or legal exception.] (Law) Consisting in, or acquired by, immemorial or long-continued use and enjoyment; as, a prescriptive right of title; pleading the continuance and authority of long custom. The right to be drowsy in protracted toil has become prescriptive. --J. M. Mason.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

A prescriptive approach to something involves telling people what they should do, rather than simply giving suggestions or describing what is done. (FORMAL) ...prescriptive attitudes to language on the part of teachers... The psychologists insist, however, that they are not being prescriptive. ADJ

Moby Thesaurus

absolute, accepted, accustomed, acknowledged, admitted, authoritarian, authoritative, autocratic, average, binding, canonical, commanding, common, commonplace, compelling, compulsory, conclusive, conformable, constrictive, consuetudinary, conventional, current, customary, decisive, decretal, decretive, decretory, dictated, dictating, dictatorial, didactic, directive, dogmatic, entailed, established, ethnocentric, everyday, exceptional, excluding, exclusive, exclusory, familiar, final, fixed, folk, formulary, generally accepted, habitual, hallowed, handed down, hard and fast, hard-and-fast, heroic, hoary, household, immemorial, imperative, imperious, imposed, inadmissible, instructive, insular, inveterate, irrevocable, jussive, legendary, long-established, long-standing, mandated, mandating, mandatory, must, mythological, narrow, normal, normative, obligating, obligatory, obtaining, of long standing, of the folk, official, oral, ordinary, overbearing, parochial, peremptory, popular, preceptive, preclusive, predominating, prescribed, prescript, prevailing, prevalent, preventive, prohibitive, received, recognized, regular, regulation, required, restrictive, rooted, rubric, seclusive, segregative, select, selective, separative, set, snobbish, standard, statutory, stock, time-honored, traditional, tried and true, true-blue, ultimate, understood, universal, unwritten, usual, venerable, vernacular, widespread, without appeal, wonted, worshipful, xenophobic