Psychologists attribute that social selectivity to a recognition that time is growing too short to waste it on people we don’t like.
Source: tatoeba (11175110)
Selectivity
Synonyms for "selectivity" (10 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (2)
Noun(1 words)
Strong matches (3)
Related words (5)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
More general
1 entriesRelated terms
1 entriesderived
17 entriesShowing 16 of 17 words.
derived from
1 entrieshas context
1 entriesis a
1 entriesrelated to
11 entriesTranslations
18 translations across 9 languages.
Arabic
1 entries- اِنْتِقَائِيَّة noun (the quality of being selective)
Bulgarian
3 entries- избирателност noun (the quality of being selective)
- селективност noun (ability of a radio receiver to separate a desired frequency from others)
- чувствителност noun (ability of a radio receiver to separate a desired frequency from others)
Catalan
1 entries- selectivitat noun (the quality of being selective)
Czech
2 entries- selektivita noun (the quality of being selective)
- výběrovost noun (the quality of being selective)
French
1 entries- sélectivité noun (the quality of being selective)
German
4 entries- Abstimmschärfe noun (ability of a radio receiver to separate a desired frequency from others)
- Empfindlichkeit noun (ability of a radio receiver to separate a desired frequency from others)
- Selektivität noun (the quality of being selective)
- Selektivität noun (ability of a radio receiver to separate a desired frequency from others)
Portuguese
1 entries- seletividade noun (the quality of being selective)
Slovak
2 entries- selektívnosť noun (the quality of being selective)
- selektívnosť noun (ability of a radio receiver to separate a desired frequency from others)
Spanish
1 entries- selectividad noun (the quality of being selective)
Sample sentences
4 total sentences available.
[…] while music was known to have scientific qualities — harmony, Pythagorean proportional relationship, etc. — it was the musician who by his selectivity made these proportions beautiful, […]
Source: wiktionary
“We must stop conflating selectivity with excellence. We must stop correlating prestige with privilege,” he said.
Source: wiktionary
Proponents of selectivity herald its cost effectiveness; instead of resources being spread over a vast population, money or services can be used where they are most needed. This can help fill in the gaps between needy and non-needy groups. […] Critics of selectivity argue, however, that it may be more cost effective to provide social welfare benefits across the board rather than to spend time and money sorting out those who are "truly disadvantaged."
Source: wiktionary
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.