Causative

//ˈkɔːzətɪv// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition).
Adjective
  1. 1
    Acting as a cause. not-comparable

    "Causative in nature of a number of effects."

  2. 2
    Involving, or affected by, causality. not-comparable

    "Such statistical analysis can establish correlation but cannot tell us whether the correlation is proximally causative, distally causative, or noncausative."

  3. 3
    Expressing a cause or causation. not-comparable

    "The ablative is a causative case."

Adjective
  1. 1
    producing an effect wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
occasionalabortifacientactivatinganorexigenicbehind the scenescausal

Example

More examples

"Actually, there are many cases where 'have [object] done' is not causative."

Etymology

From French causatif, from Latin causātīvus (“causative, pertaining to a lawsuit, accusative”), from causa (“cause”); see cause (verb) and -ive.

Related phrases

causative verb

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.