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explicatives

explicatives is the plural of explicative.

Meaning of explicative

Noun

explicative (plural explicatives)

  1. An explicative term or expression.
    • For the adverſative particle [but] which follows, when he ſaith, but he emptied himſelf requires this: Otherwiſe it will not be ſo much an adverſative as an explicative, and will be taken improperly, ſed, pro, veruntamen, but for, nevertheleſs: which leads us to the conſideration of verſe 7.1669, John Tombes, “The Text Is Explained in Order to the Refelling of the Exception”, in Emmanuel; or, God-Man. […], London: […] F. Smith […], →OCLC, page 197
  2. (nonstandard) An expletive.
    • Norfolk may yet win its battle against deletable explicatives.1974 August 8, B. Drummond Ayres Jr., “Boom Helps Norfolk, Va., to Delete Expletives About Its Past”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

See all 3 meanings of explicative

Questions about explicatives

What is explicatives the plural of?
Explicatives is the plural of explicative.

Words near explicatives in the dictionary

  1. explication
  2. explicational
  3. explications
  4. explicative
  5. explicatively
  6. explicatives
  7. explicator
  8. explicators
  9. explicatory
  10. explicatum
  11. explicature

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: explicatives (page history and authors); explicative (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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