Word.ws English Dictionary

attritive

/əˈtɹaɪtɪv/

attritive adjective: causing attrition.

Adjective

attritive (comparative more attritive, superlative most attritive)

  1. Causing attrition.
    • […] the clay […] had gradually been moulded, under the attritive influences of the elements, into series of alternating ridges and furrows,1858, Hugh Miller, Rambles of a Geologist, Chapter 5, in The Cruise of the Betsey; with Rambles of a Geologist, Edinburgh: Constable, p. 302
    • Do you mark how the wistaria, sun-impacted on this wall here, distills and penetrates this room as though (light-unimpeded) by secret and attritive progress from mote to mote of obscurity’s myriad components?1936, William Faulkner, chapter 5, in Absalom, Absalom!, New York: Random House

Forms of attritive

comparativemore attritive
superlativemost attritive

Origin of attritive

From attrit + -ive. From attrition.

Questions about attritive

What does attritive mean?
Attritive means causing attrition.
What part of speech is attritive?
Attritive is an adjective.
How do you pronounce attritive?
Attritive is pronounced /əˈtɹaɪtɪv/.

Words near attritive in the dictionary

  1. attritionally
  2. attritionary
  3. attritioned
  4. attritioning
  5. attritions
  6. attritive
  7. attritor
  8. attritors
  9. attrits
  10. attritted
  11. attritting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: attritive (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “attritive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/attritive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.