Contrastive
//kənˈtɹæs.tɪv// adj
adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Contrasting: tending to contrast; being in contrast.
"This thesis is an attempt to apply the theory of transformational grammar to the Japanese language. […] Comparison of the structure of Japanese and English is also our concern, whenever possible, and it is seen that the transformational theory is helpful in such contrastive studies."
Adjective
- 1 syntactically establishing a relation of contrast between sentences or elements of a sentence wordnet
- 2 strikingly different; tending to contrast wordnet
- 3 of words so related that one contrasts with the other wordnet
Example
More examples"This thesis is an attempt to apply the theory of transformational grammar to the Japanese language. […] Comparison of the structure of Japanese and English is also our concern, whenever possible, and it is seen that the transformational theory is helpful in such contrastive studies."
Etymology
From contrast + -ive.
Related phrases
More for "contrastive"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.