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Formative

//ˈfɔːmətɪv// adj, noun

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Capable of forming something.

    "[I]ts thought, that, in the Seed are alvvaies potentially ſeuerall indiuiduating Qualities deriu'd from diuers of the neere Anceſtors, vvhich by the formatiue povver of the Parents may be expreſt in the Children, vvith reſpectiue habitude to either Sex; […]"

  2. 2
    Capable of forming something.; Capable of producing new tissue.
  3. 3
    Capable of forming something.; Pertaining to the formation of words; specifically, of an affix: forming words through inflection.
  4. 4
    Of or pertaining to the formation and subsequent growth of something.

    "My formative years were spent in an inner city."

  5. 5
    Of a form of assessment: used to guide learning rather than to quantify educational outcomes.
Adjective
  1. 1
    forming or capable of forming or molding or fashioning wordnet
  2. 2
    capable of forming new cells and tissues wordnet
Noun
  1. 1
    A thing which causes formation to occur.

    "[T]his museum of the state of flux [Newmarket, Suffolk] has a climate unrivalled for the production of the British temperament. Not without a due proportion of that essential formative of character, east wind, it has at once the hottest sun, the coldest blizzards, the wettest rain, of any place of its size in 'the three kingdoms.'"

  2. 2
    minimal language unit that has a syntactic (or morphological) function wordnet
  3. 3
    A language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function (that is, forming a word from a root or another word).
  4. 4
    Synonym of derivative (“a word that derives from another one”).

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English formatyve, formatif (“having the ability to form”), from Old French formatif, formative (modern French formatif), from Medieval Latin formātīvus, from Latin fōrmātus + -īvus (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘doing’ or ‘related to doing’). Fōrmātus is the perfect passive participle of fōrmō (“to form, to shape”), from fōrma (“a form, shape”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “a form, shape”) (see further at that entry). By surface analysis, form + -ative.

Etymology 2

Etymology 2 sense 1 (“thing which causes formation to occur”) is derived from the noun. Etymology 2 sense 2.1 (“language unit”) is borrowed from German Formativ, a noun use of formativ (adjective), from Middle French formatif, from Old French formatif (see etymology 1).

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