partitive

1. 1.

   (Romance languages) relating to or denoting a part of a whole or a quantity that is less than the whole

   “a partitive construction”
2. 2.

   indicating or characterized by or serving to create partition or division into parts

   “partitive tendencies in education”
3. 3.

   serving to separate or divide into parts

   “partitive tendencies in education”

   “the uniting influence was stronger than the separative”

   Synonymsseparative

   Similardisjunctive

1. 1.

   word (such a `some' or `less') that is used to indicate a part as distinct from a whole

   Broaderword

Other forms of partitive

plural

partitives·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about partitive

What does partitive mean?

partitive means "(Romance languages) relating to or denoting a part of a whole or a quantity that is less than the whole". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in partitive?

partitive has 3 syllables: par-ti-tive. The stress falls on "par".

What is another word for partitive?

Close synonyms include separative. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is partitive a common word?

partitive is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.