Distinctive

How to spell distinctive

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce distinctive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distinctive mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a quality or feature that clearly sets something apart from others and makes it easy to recognise.

Distinctive in a sentence

• The brand chose a distinctive shade of orange for all its packaging.

• Her distinctive handwriting made every note instantly recognisable.

Where does distinctive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb distinguere, which meant 'to separate' or 'to mark off', built from dis- 'apart' and the verb stinguere, whose underlying sense was to prick or to mark. Its past participle distinctus gave rise to the medieval Latin adjective distinctivus, meaning 'serving to separate or distinguish'. English took the word in through Old French distinctif during the late Middle Ages, and by the fifteenth century 'distinctive' described a quality that sets one thing clearly apart from another. The same Latin root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'distinguish', 'distinct', and even 'extinguish', which all share that idea of marking or putting out. The spelling keeps the silent letters of the Latin cluster, so the tricky part is remembering the -ct- in the middle and the -ive ending rather than -ife.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart)
• stinct (from Latin stinguere: to mark, prick, separate)
• -ive (adjective suffix)