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say it: reh-pruh-ZEN-tuh-tiv
representative is a noun and adjective meaning "a person who represents others". It carries 7 recorded senses.
a person who represents others
an advocate who represents someone else's policy or purpose
“the meeting was attended by spokespersons for all the major organs of government”
a member of the United States House of Representatives
an item of information that is typical of a class or group
“this patient provides a typical example of the syndrome”
“there is an example on page 10”
serving to represent or typify
“representative moviegoers”
“a representative modern play”
standing for something else
“the bald eagle is representative of the United States”
being or characteristic of government by representation in which citizens exercise power through elected officers and representatives
“representative government as defined by Abraham Lincoln is government of the people, by the people, for the people”
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 representative 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.