Word.ws English Dictionary

constative

UK/ˈkɒnstətɪv/

constative adjective: pertaining to an utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.

Adjective

constative (not comparable)

  1. Pertaining to an utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.
    • Statements are constative utterances.
    • One thing, however, that it will be more dangerous to do, and that we are very prone to do, is to take it that we somehow know that the primary or primitive use of sentences must be, because it ought to be, statemental or constative, in the philosophers' preferred sense of simply uttering something...1962, J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (OUP paperback edition, page 72)

Noun

constative (plural constatives)

  1. An utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.
    • The distinction between constatives and performatives is one of the distinctions that he starts questioning.2011, Phyllis Kaburise, Speech Act Theory and Communication: A Univen Study, page 77

Forms of constative

pluralconstatives

Origin of constative

Coined to translate the German konstatierend, using cōnstāt-, the perfect passive participial stem of the Latin verb cōnstō (“to agree, correspond, or fit; to am certain, decided, or consistent”), suffixed with the English -ive, suggesting a hypothetical Latin etymon of the form *cōnstātīvus.

Words formed from constative

Questions about constative

What does constative mean?
Constative means pertaining to an utterance relaying information and likely to be regarded as true or false.
What part of speech is constative?
Constative can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce constative?
Constative is pronounced /ˈkɒnstətɪv/ (UK).

Words near constative in the dictionary

  1. constate
  2. constated
  3. constates
  4. constating
  5. constation
  6. constative
  7. constatively
  8. constativeness
  9. constatives
  10. constativity
  11. constats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: constative (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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