Factive

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A factive verb.

Adjective

1
Licensing only those content clauses that represent claims that are (known or believed with certainty to be) true. not-comparable
"Under this account, verbs like forget and remember are classified as factive (1) and verbs like think and believe as nonfactive (2)."
2
Making; creative. not-comparable, obsolete
3
Which does not know any falsities: which knows only truths. not-comparable

Antonyms

contrafactive nonfactive

Example

"Under this account, verbs like forget and remember are classified as factive (1) and verbs like think and believe as nonfactive (2)."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From fact + -ive.

Etymology 2

From New Latin factīvus, from Latin facere (“to make”).

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