expressive
Syllables: ex·pres·siveUK/ɪkˈspɹɛsɪv//ɪkˈspɹɛsɪv/
expressive adjective: effectively conveying thought or feeling.
Adjective
expressive (comparative more expressive, superlative most expressive)
- Effectively conveying thought or feeling.
- expressive dancing
- a gesture expressive of the utmost contempt
- Conveying the speaker's emotions and/or attitudes, in addition to the denotative or literal meaning.
- These adults performed significantly more poorly than a group of 28 control adults on all measures of articulation and expressive and receptive language.2008, Louise Cummings, Clinical Linguistics, page 270
- This volume provides a detailed account of the syntax of expressive language, that is, utterances that express, rather than describe, the emotions and attitudes of the speaker.2019, Daniel Gutzmann, The Grammar of Expressivity
- Able to represent a number of ideas or concepts.
- A programming language that is Turing complete is more expressive than one that is not.
Noun
expressive (plural expressives)
- Any word or phrase that expresses (that the speaker, writer, or signer has) a certain attitude toward or information about the referent.
- Consider the case of expressives, where no prior knowledge of the speaker’s attitudes are required to interpret the utterance. In (43) ["That jerk Alexa keeps making me look bad"], Steve does not need to know (and in fact has no prior knowledge of) anything relating to Siri’s attitudes towards...2017, Tammi Leann Stout, An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel (dissertation for the University of Texas at Austin)
- A word or phrase, belonging to a distinct word class or having distinct morphosyntactic properties, with semantic symbolism (for example, an onomatopoeia), variously considered either a synonym, a hypernym or a hyponym of ideophone.
- Cross-linguistically 'expressives' are more commonly termed 'ideophones' [...] Expressives are often cited as a distinctive shared feature of the Austroasiatic language family (Diffloth and Zide 1992; Osada 1992 (Mundari); Svantesson 1983 (Kammu)). [...] I do not make a distinction between...2004, Nicole Kruspe, A Grammar of Semelai, →ISBN, page 396
- A native metalinguistic term toongl-toojl covers most of these, capturing a range of phenomena associated with alliterative, sound symbolic, and poetic expression. This chapter describes expressive structures under the headings ideophones, onomatopoeia, four-syllable rhyming expressions, echo...2007, N. J. Enfield, A Grammar of Lao, →ISBN, page 299
- Synonyms:
- sound-symbolic
expressive meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Malayalam
expressive in Hindi
- expressive, denotative, signifying
- वाचक vācak
expressive in Marathi
- अभिव्यक्तीशील, अभिव्यक्तीक्षम, अभिव्यंजक
expressive in Bengali
- প্রকাশপূর্ণ, অর্থবহ
expressive in Malayalam
- ഭാവപ്രകടനപരമായ, ഭാവംനിറഞ്ഞ, തെളിവായി കാണിക്കുന്ന
More languagesFewer languages
- expressive in Kannada
- ಅಭಿವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಶೀಲ, ಅಭಿವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಶೀಲವಾಗಿದೆ
- expressive in Gujarati
- અભિવ્યક્તિશીલ, અભિવ્યક્તિપૂર્ણ
- expressive in Odia
- ଅଭିବ୍ଯ଼କ୍ତିଶୀଳ
- expressive in Nepali
- अभिव्यंजक, अभिव्यक्तिशील, अभिव्यक्तिपूर्ण
Examples of expressive in a sentence
- Consider the case of expressives, where no prior knowledge of the speaker’s attitudes are required to interpret the utterance.2017, Tammi Leann Stout, An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel (dissertation for the University of Texas at...
- I examine the valency of expressives, a class of ideophones in Mundari, comparing their behaviors as predicates to those of reduplicated verb forms.2017, Sam Gray, Classifications of Mundari Expressives and Other Reduplicated Structures (thesis)
Synonyms of expressive
Antonyms
Forms of expressive
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more expressive |
| superlative | most expressive |
| Noun | |
| plural | expressives |
Origin of expressive
From Middle French expressif.
Words formed from expressive
Words that rhyme with expressive
- incessive
- progressive
- aggressive
- ingressive
- oppressive
- depressive
- egressive
- essive
- impressive
- obsessive
- possessive
- recessive
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- successive
- accessive
- caressive
- concessive
- degressive
- digressive
- double possessive
- passive-aggressive
- pressive
- regressive
- retrogressive
- transgressive
- abessive
- addressive
- adessive
- alloaggressive
- allosuppressive
- antessive
- antidepressive
- antiexpressive
- antioppressive
- antiprogressive
- antirepressive
- anxiodepressive
- atheroprogressive
- atherosuppressive
- autogressive
- autoregressive
- autorepressive
- brogressive
- cardiodepressive
- cardiosuppressive
- compressive
- concrescive
- confessive
- congressive
- corepressive
- crescive
- decompressive
- derepressive
- dispossessive
- effervescive
- excessive
- exessive
- fauxgressive
- fibrosuppressive
- future perfect progressive
- future progressive
Questions about expressive
- What does expressive mean?
- Expressive means effectively conveying thought or feeling.
- What is expressive in Hindi?
- Expressive in Hindi is वाचक (vācak). See Expressive meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use expressive in a sentence?
- Consider the case of expressives, where no prior knowledge of the speaker’s attitudes are required to interpret the utterance.
- What part of speech is expressive?
- Expressive can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce expressive?
- Expressive is pronounced /ɪkˈspɹɛsɪv/ (UK).
Words near expressive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: expressive (page history and authors); वाचक (Hindi) (page history and authors); expressive (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); Expressive (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expressive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expressive (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); expressive (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); expressive (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); expressive (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-expressive.ogg.
Cite this entry: “expressive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/expressive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.