Word.ws English Dictionary

aspective

aspective adjective: reflecting one or more aspects, usually of a unified whole, as opposed to a heterogenous entity composed of qualitatively different parts.

Adjective

aspective (not comparable)

  1. Reflecting one or more aspects, usually of a unified whole, as opposed to a heterogenous entity composed of qualitatively different parts.
    • The aspective relation borne by the symbol to the matter symbolised is widely different from that which the matter symbolised bears to the symbol; but, when the symbol is an idea, deliberately employed, it carries with it the consciousness of the twofold relation.1915, George Croom Robertson, George Frederick Stout, George Edward Moore, Mind, page 507
    • We are holistic, and we are highly aspective.1977, William Powell Tuck, The Struggle for Meaning, page 78
  2. Pertaining to or supporting grammatical aspect.
    • Intermediate between aspective and inflectional prefixes are the cessatives, and the repetitive (-yi-).1907, Publications of the American Ethnological Society, page 159
    • When forming an aspective pair in which both verbs have the same meaning, prefixes perform a merely 'aspective' (grammatical) function, often losing their lexical meaning.1962, Anna Hering Semeonoff, Russian syntax: being part III of A new Russian grammar, page 147
  3. Having a fixed symbolic rendition, as opposed to one that represents a particular perspective or point of view.
    • Historical events can also be depicted in aspective art but the artist has no alternative scheme to show that this is a non-recurrent event.1986, Roger Neich, The Development of New Zealand Maori Figuritive Painting, page 227
    • The transformation of the Greek myths into a tragic representation itself corresponds to the passage from aspective to perspective.1993, Jean-Joseph Goux, Oedipus, Philosopher, page 128

Noun

aspective (uncountable)

  1. The techniques that make art aspective as opposed to perspective.
    • This unusual sketch from the Valley of the Kings depicts a queen or perhaps a goddess riding into battle in a chariot against a male opponent. She and her adversary are driven by smaller charioteers, according to the laws of aspective."1978, William H. Peck, Egyptian Drawings

Examples of aspective in a sentence

  • The “aspective” naturalist program has gone from strength to strength, while the “partitive” dualist program, with Sir John Eccles as its sole eminent champion of recent decades, has gone nowhere.2013, Nicola Hoggard Creegan, Andrew Shepherd, Taking Rational Trouble Over the Mysteries: Reactions to Atheism:
  • The differences between perspective and aspective approaches to a subject result in significantly different pieces of art.2011, Bennie H. Reynolds III, Between Symbolism and Realism:

Origin of aspective

From aspect + -ive.

Questions about aspective

What does aspective mean?
Aspective means reflecting one or more aspects, usually of a unified whole, as opposed to a heterogenous entity composed of qualitatively different parts.
How do you use aspective in a sentence?
The “aspective” naturalist program has gone from strength to strength, while the “partitive” dualist program, with Sir John Eccles as its sole eminent champion of recent decades, has gone nowhere.
What part of speech is aspective?
Aspective can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near aspective in the dictionary

  1. aspected
  2. aspecting
  3. aspection
  4. aspections
  5. aspectism
  6. aspective
  7. AspectJ
  8. aspectless
  9. aspectlessness
  10. aspectological
  11. aspectology

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: aspective (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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