Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Sustaining; maintaining; affording nourishment or subsistence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Adapted to sustain, strengthen, or corroborate.
  • adjective (Physiol.) those functions of the body which affect its material composition and thus determine its mass.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Adapted to sustain, strengthen, or corroborate.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There ` s no reason for somebody who has something sustentative to talk about to go talk to Hannity or go talk to Bill O ` Reilly or FOX and friends or really any of they ` re a very obvious propaganda --

    CNN Transcript Oct 19, 2009 2009

  • There is no sustentative polling data at the time of this writing that suggests otherwise.

    Running Mates: Obama's Best Vice Presidential Picks 2008

  • Am I the only one who finds the bloggers writing more sustentative “articles” than the NYT journalists over the last 2 or 3 days?

    The Early Word: The Week Ahead - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com 2008

  • When the non-sustentative forms of lethal selection are considered, it is seen very clearly that man is not exempt from the workings of this law.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • They are the victims of lethal natural selection, nearly always of the non-sustentative type.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • The sustentative factor has acquired particular prominence in the human species, since Malthus wrote his essay on population -- that essay which both Darwin and Wallace confess was the starting point of their discovery of natural selection.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • Non-sustentative lethal selection in man is operating chiefly through zymotic diseases and the bad hygiene of the mentally inferior.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • These causes may be conveniently divided as in the above diagram, into sustentative and non-sustentative.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • For this reason alone the non-sustentative form of selection might be expected to be the predominant kind.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • But it must not be supposed that lethal, non-sustentative selection works only through forms of infant mortality.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

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