Descriptive

How to spell descriptive

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce descriptive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does descriptive mean?

1. adjectiveServing to describe something by giving a detailed account of its features or qualities.

Descriptive in a sentence

• The brochure used descriptive language to capture the hotel's atmosphere.

• Her report was clear and descriptive, leaving no detail to guesswork.

Where does descriptive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb describere, meaning 'to write down' or 'to copy off', formed from de- 'down' and scribere 'to write'. From describere came the Late Latin adjective descriptivus, applied to anything that sets something out in words. English took it up in the seventeenth century to mean 'serving to describe', and it has stayed close to that sense ever since. The root scribere is enormously productive in English, sitting inside everyday relatives such as 'scribble', 'manuscript', 'subscribe', and 'transcript'. Remembering that hidden script (from 'to write') is useful for the spelling, since it explains the central 'scrip' that writers sometimes garble.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• script (from scribere: to write)
• -ive (adjective suffix)