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say it: REL-uh-tiv
relative is a noun and adjective meaning "a person related by blood or marriage". It carries 4 recorded senses.
an animal or plant that bears a relationship to another (as related by common descent or by membership in the same genus)
estimated by comparison; not absolute or complete
“a relative stranger”
properly related in size or degree or other measurable characteristics; usually followed by `to'
“the punishment ought to be proportional to the crime”
“earnings relative to production”
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for relative come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.