SUBSTANTIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Substantive

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/sˈəbstəntɪv/ Listen

adjective

Substantive adj.

Betokening or expressing existence; as, the substantive verb, that is, the verb to be.

Depending on itself; independent. "He considered how sufficient and substantive this land was to maintain itself without any aid of the foreigner."

Enduring; solid; firm; substantial. "Strength and magnitude are qualities which impress the imagination in a powerful and substantive manner."

Pertaining to, or constituting, the essential part or principles; as, the law substantive.

Noun substantive (Gram.), a noun which designates an object, material or immaterial; a substantive.

Substantive color, one which communicates its color without the aid of a mordant or base; opposed to adjective color.

noun

Substantive n. (Gram.) A noun or name; the part of speech which designates something that exists, or some object of thought, either material or immaterial; as, the words man, horse, city, goodness, excellence, are substantives.

verb

Substantive v. t. To substantivize. (R.)

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Etymology of 'Substantive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Substantive" Quotes from Famous Books

... This word is now used in a most ignorant way; and from its misuse it has come to be a word wholly useless: for it is now never coupled, I think, with any other substantive than these two—faith and confidence: a poor domain indeed to have sunk to from its original wide range of territory. Moreover, when we say, implicit faith, or implicit confidence, we do not thereby indicate any specific kind of faith and confidence differing from other faith ...

— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... hangs over these events, but of this I am sure, he will be unable to deny anything I advance. There is evidence almost amounting to demonstration that Pichegru was strangled in prison, and consequently all idea of suicide must be rejected as inadmissible. Have I positive and substantive proof of what I assert? I have not; but the concurrence of facts and the weight of probabilities do not leave me in possession of the doubts I should wish to entertain on that tragic event. Besides, there exists ...

— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... park between it, and the palace which is called Huytal; but why it is called Huytal, I am sure I don't know." His researches in the English language had not enabled him to recognize the adjective and substantive out of which the abstruse compound ...

— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... other aspects of juvenile delinquency, must apply with much the same force in this Dominion as elsewhere, and to the sexual deviant as to all other juvenile delinquents. In searching for the real or substantive cause it must be borne in mind that juvenile delinquency, of the type now being considered, is a new feature of modern life and a facet of juvenile delinquency which does not appear to have engaged the ...

— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.

... archaically expressed by a second and abstract substantive. This peculiarity is common in the South African family, as in Ashanti; but, as Bowdich observes, we also find it in Greek, e.g. , "heresies of destruction" for destructive. Another notable characteristic is the Mpongwe's fondness for the passive voice, never ...

— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

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