REFLEXIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Reflexive

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/rəflˈɛksɪv/ Listen

adjective

Reflexive adj.

Bending or turned backward; reflective; having respect to something past. "Assurance reflexive can not be a divine faith."

Implying censure. (Obs.) "What man does not resent an ugly reflexive word?"

(Gram.) Having for its direct object a pronoun which refers to the agent or subject as its antecedent; said of certain verbs; as, the witness perjured himself; I bethought myself. Applied also to pronouns of this class; reciprocal; reflective.

See images of 'Reflexive'

Etymology of 'Reflexive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Reflexive" Quotes from Famous Books

... A vestirse, y fuera pereza: Dress yourself, and out upon your loitering. The reflexive third person se, in phrases of command, like a levantarse and a vestirse, has become stereotyped, so it remains the same for all persons, singular ...

— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus

... a reflexive, frequentative form from notza, to think, to reflect, itself from the primitive radicle no, mind, common to both the Nahuatl and Maya languages. The syllable yol is for yollotl, heart, in its figurative ...

— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... although Poland was never poor in talents of various kinds, yet its literary contributions have aimed less at the advancement of science in general, than to exalt the glory of the Polish name, and thus have an immediate reflexive influence on the nation. In the same spirit, the history of other countries has received little attention, not excepting even ancient history. Poland indeed does not possess a single distinguished work on foreign history; and their Gibbons ...

— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... self-consciousness. Citizenship, bodily health, all forms of appreciation and knowledge, were identified in the parts they played here. In short the Christian consciousness, although renunciation was its deepest motive, was reflexive and centripetal to a degree hitherto unknown among the European peoples. And when with St. Augustine theoretical interests once more vigorously asserted themselves, this new emphasis was in the ...

— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... will come along. The reflexive pronoun, so common with verbs of motion, is redundant. For tense cf. note ...

— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon