formatives

Noun

formative (plural formatives)

1. A thing which causes formation to occur.
   • [T]his museum of the state of flux [Newmarket, Suffolk] has a climate unrivalled for the production of the British temperament. Not without a due proportion of that essential formative of character, east wind, it has at once the hottest sun, the coldest blizzards, the wettest rain, of any place of...1907, John Galsworthy, “The Happy Hunting-ground”, in The Country House, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, part I, page 33
2. A language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function (that is, forming a word from a root or another word).

   Synonyms:

   formans, formant

3. Synonym of derivative (“a word that derives from another one”).

   Synonyms:

   descendant, reflex, derivative

See all 8 meanings of formative