elective
/ɪˈlɛktɪv/
elective adjective: of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.
Adjective
elective (comparative more elective, superlative most elective)
- Of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.
- For his Conscience could not but whisper to the Arbitrary Monarch, that the Kings of Rome were at first Elective, and Govern’d not without a Senate:1697, John Dryden, The Works of Virgil […] translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, dedicatory preface to the Marquess of Normanby
- Man thus endued with an elective voice,
Must be supplied with objects of his choice.1782, William Cowper, “The Progress of Error”, in Poems,, London: J. Johnson, page 43
- Synonyms:
- electoral
- Antonyms:
- appointive, hereditary
- Open to choice; freely chosen; (also, usually) unnecessary; minor.
- After accounting for all of my required courses, there is hardly any room in my schedule for any elective ones.
- […] his Lordship is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it, differs from an action voluntary and elective, for even the setting of a mans foot, in the posture for walking, and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done...1654, Thomas Hobbes, Of Libertie and Necessitie, London: F. Eaglesfield, pages 12–13
- Synonyms:
- discretionary, optional, voluntary
- Antonyms:
- compulsory, mandatory, obligatory, required, involuntary
- Scheduled and nonemergent (regardless of whether necessary or unnecessary and whether minor or serious).
- It was very confusing hearing my cancer surgery being classified as "elective surgery". Am I "electing" to live rather than die?
- The vast majority of surgical procedures are considered elective, which means they can be scheduled in advance. […] doctors warned that thousands of patients were suffering as a result of delayed elective procedures such as hernia repair and spinal fusion. […] Nitin Yerram, director of urological...2024 January 9, Dan Lamothe, Matt Viser, Fenit Nirappil, Missy Ryan, “Austin treated for prostate cancer before emergency, Pentagon reveals”, in Washington Post, retrieved 09 Jan 2024
- Antonyms:
- emergent, unscheduled
Noun
elective (plural electives)
- Something that is an option or may be freely chosen, especially a course of study.
- I still need to decide which electives to take along with my compulsory courses next semester.
elective meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
elective in Tamil
- தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட
elective in Urdu
- انتخابی
elective in Malayalam
- ഇലക്ടീവ്
elective in Kannada
- ಚುನಾಯಿತನಾದ, ಆಯ್ಕೆಯ, ಚುನಾವಣೆಯ ಮೂಲಕ ಭರ್ತಿಯಾದ, ಚುನಾವಣೆಯ ಹಕ್ಕುಳ್ಳ
More languagesFewer languages
- elective in Indonesian
- elektif
Examples of elective in a sentence
- […] they rested their hopes of redress on the independent use of their elective franchise;1854, George Bancroft, chapter 35, in History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent,, volume 6...
- See the populace, millions upon millions, handsome, tall, muscular, both sexes, clothed in easy and dignified clothes―teaching, commanding, marrying, generating, equally electing and elective;1860, Walt Whitman, “Proto-Leaf”, in Leaves of Grass, Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, page 21:
- [Her friends] are, after all, her elective siblings who have distanced themselves from the ways of the past, their families […]2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup, Toronto: Viking, page 23:
- “[…] That blog is a game that you don’t really take seriously, it’s like choosing an interesting elective evening class to complete your credits.”2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, chapter 38, in Americanah, New York: Knopf, page 346:
Synonyms of elective
Antonyms
Forms of elective
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more elective |
| superlative | most elective |
| Noun | |
| plural | electives |
Origin of elective
From elect + -ive.
Words formed from elective
Phrases with elective
Words that rhyme with elective
- projective
- subjective
- effective
- objective
- prospective
- reflective
- collective
- connective
- defective
- directive
- respective
- selective
28 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- injective
- detective
- irrespective
- perfective
- retrospective
- affective
- bijective
- corrective
- erective
- ineffective
- inflective
- intellective
- intersubjective
- protective
- refective
- advective
- convective
- deflective
- ejective
- imperfective
- infective
- inspective
- introspective
- overprotective
- rejective
- surjective
- unreflective
- unselective
Questions about elective
- What does elective mean?
- Elective means of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.
- What is elective in Tamil?
- Elective in Tamil is தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட. See Elective meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use elective in a sentence?
- […] they rested their hopes of redress on the independent use of their elective franchise;
- What part of speech is elective?
- Elective can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce elective?
- Elective is pronounced /ɪˈlɛktɪv/.
Words near elective in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: elective (page history and authors); elective (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); elective (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); elective (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elective (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-elective.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-elective.wav.
Cite this entry: “elective.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/elective. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.