Word.ws English Dictionary

reservative

reservative adjective: tending to reserve or keep; Involving the holding of something in reserve.

Adjective

reservative (not comparable)

  1. Tending to reserve or keep; Involving the holding of something in reserve.
    • But, says Sir Walter Rawleigh in his story of it, Eumenes perceiving the meaning of Antigonus (for that the oath in a few words mentioned the King and Princes of the blood, rather to keep the decorum, than upon any loyall intent, the binding words and summe of all the rest being such, as tyed him...1703, Sir Philip Warwick, Memoires of the Reign of King Charles I., page 127
    • The more enjoyment here we have A reservative store, Augmenting thus, our path to pave, 'Twill shine for ever more.1849, John Wright, A Gem For Every-One, page 12
  2. Expressing reservation; indicating a qualification or doubt.
    • With this enumeration of the advantages of a refined taste, we would make one reservative remark.1855, Mary G. Clarke, Home Garner; Or, The Intellectual and Moral Store House, page 45
    • Prior to the closing of the meeting, Chinese delegation leader Liu Huaqiu, the deputy Chinese foreign minister, made a reservative speech , saying " we have reservations to some contents of the document."1991, United States. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: People's Republic of China - Issues 126-132, page 7
  3. Pertaining to a form of transfer of real estate, in Spanish and South American law, where full ownership is granted to another person but where the new owner must pay the original owner an annual fee for rights to the land.
    • That this is a reservative grant, viz., one converying full dominion, is manifest from the character of the annuity which by law is declared to attach to composition titles, viz., its redeemable quality.1890, John Sayles, Henry Sayles, A Treatise on the Laws of Texas Relating to Real Estate, page 65
    • Reservative annuities can not be validly constituted unless preceded by an appraisement of the estate by an estimate agreed to by the parties or upon a just expert appraisal .1899, Translation of the Civil Code in Force in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, page 216
  4. Denoting an action that puts the object of the sentence into a state in which it remains.
    • In the Reservative, Intensive, and Continuative Forms as well as in the Reflexive Voice and Dative Case, which have no General Incomplete Present, this Tense is used for both the Present Tenses, but can never be used as an Indefinite Present;1873, Lars O. Skrefsrud, A grammar of the Santhal language by the Rev. L. O. Skrefsrud, page 343
    • The reservative form, which is conjugated throughout, has also separate causative and reciprocal bases.1906, Linguistic Survey of India - Volume 4, Part 1, page 40

Noun

reservative (plural reservatives)

  1. An exception to a rule or decree; a proviso.
    • And, according to this Reservative, in the 8th year of King Richard the Second, one charged before the Kings Bench, was afterwards referred to the Parliament; and there, though the Fact was not contained in the Body of the Statute, yet because of the Proviso afore-mentioned, it was adjudged Treason.1680, John Rushworth, The Tryal of Thomas Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Upon an Impeachment of High Treason, page 674
    • In the dedication to Lord Hatton of the collective edition of his controversial writings after the Restoration, he declares that "when a persecution did arise against the church of England, he intended to make a reservative for his brethren and himself, by pleading for a liberty to our consciences...1839, Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, page 116

Examples of reservative in a sentence

  • One often sees the beginnings of this deeply conservative, if not reservative literature –probably wrongly – in the 'hostility to automata' Jean Paul's and E.T.A.2024, Hans-Georg Soeffner, The Designed Myth, page 29:
  • Reservative censos can not be validly constituted until the value of the estate has been determined by agreement between the parties or by expert appraisal.1918, Frederick Charles Fisher, The Civil Code of Spain: With Philippine Notes and References, page 347:
  • The Reservative form appears to have been borrowed from the Münda languages.1909, J. E. Friend Pereira, A Grammar of the Kūi Language, page 45:
  • It is impossible to pass over in silence the circumstance that when botanists talk of the struggle for existence among plants they are forced to make various reservatives in the conception.2013, N. I. Bukharin, A. M. Deborin, Y. M. Yuranovsky, Marxism and Modern Thought, page 208:

Forms of reservative

pluralreservatives

Origin of reservative

From reserve + -ative.

Questions about reservative

What does reservative mean?
Reservative means tending to reserve or keep; Involving the holding of something in reserve.
How do you use reservative in a sentence?
One often sees the beginnings of this deeply conservative, if not reservative literature –probably wrongly – in the 'hostility to automata' Jean Paul's and E.T.A.
What part of speech is reservative?
Reservative can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near reservative in the dictionary

  1. reservation prices
  2. reservationism
  3. reservationist
  4. reservationists
  5. reservations
  6. reservative
  7. reservatives
  8. reservatories
  9. reservatory
  10. reservatrol
  11. reserve

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reservative (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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