Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Performing or tending toward a specified action: demonstrative.
Wiktionary
- n. An adjective suffix signifying relating or belonging to, of the nature of, tending to; as affirmative, active, conclusive, corrective, diminutive.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An adjective suffix signifying relating or belonging to, of the nature of, tending to.
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman -if (feminine -ive), from Latin -ivus. Until the fourteenth century all Middle English loanwords from Anglo-Norman ended in -if (compare actif, natif, sensitif, pensif etc.), and under the influence of literary Neolatin both languages introduced the form -ive. Those forms that have not been replaced were subsequently changed to end in -y (compare hasty, from hastif, jolly, from jolif etc.). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin -īvus, adj. suff. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
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