formative
/ˈfoɹmətɪv/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.27 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or pertaining to the formation and subsequent growth of something.
adj
Of a form of assessment: used to guide learning rather than to quantify educational outcomes.
noun
A language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function (that is, forming a word from a root or another word).
noun
Synonym of derivative (“a word that derives from another one”).
Example Sentences
- "[I]ts thought, that, in the Seed are alvvaies potentially ſeuerall indiuiduating Qualities deriu'd from diuers of the neere Anceſtors, vvhich by the formatiue povver of the Parents may be expreſt in the Children, vvith reſpectiue habitude to either Sex; […]"
- "Hybrids, […] have their reproductive organs functionally impotent, as may be clearly seen in the state of the male element in both plants and animals; though the formative organs themselves are perfect in structure, as far as the microscope reveals."
- "My formative years were spent in an inner city."
- "[T]his museum of the state of flux [Newmarket, Suffolk] has a climate unrivalled for the production of the British temperament. Not without a due proportion of that essential formative of character, east wind, it has at once the hottest sun, the coldest blizzards, the wettest rain, of any place of its size in 'the three kingdoms.'"
Etymology
From Middle English formatyve, formatif (“having the ability to form”), from Old French formatif, formative (modern French formatif), from Medieval Latin formātīvus, from Latin fōrmātus + -īvus (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘doing’ or ‘related to doing’). Fōrmātus is the perfect passive participle of fōrmō (“to form, to shape”), from fōrma (“a form, shape”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “a form, shape”) (see further at that entry). By surface analysis, form + -ative.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: formatyve, formatif, formātīvus, fōrmātus
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfoɹmətɪv/
- British English: /ˈfɔːmətɪv/