Durative

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    This aspect, or a verb in this aspect; a continuative.

    "In every section of this invaluable work new light is thrown on ancient problems - phrasal verbs (bring up, put off), phrasal-prepositional verbs (catch up on, come up with) [...] duratives, sentence adverbs, and so on."

  2. 2
    the aspect of a verb that expresses its duration wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or pertaining to duration.
  2. 2
    Long-lasting.
  3. 3
    Of or pertaining to the aspect of a verb that expresses continuing action; continuative. Part of the imperfective aspect, as opposed to the perfective aspect, of verbs.

Example

More examples

"In every section of this invaluable work new light is thrown on ancient problems - phrasal verbs (bring up, put off), phrasal-prepositional verbs (catch up on, come up with) [...] duratives, sentence adverbs, and so on."

Etymology

From duration + -ive. Alternatively, borrowed from French duratif, from Old French duratif (“lasting continuously (for a certain time)”), via Anglo-Norman French, and existing in the form duratif from about the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, when the spelling was altered to durative under the influence of the literary Neolatin movement. Analogous to dure (“to last, to continue”) + -ive.

Related phrases

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