Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use descriptive in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Descriptive means of, relating to, or providing a description. Example: “Methodologically, Wiktionary represents an implementation of the descriptive approach to linguistics and specifically to grammar.”

Examples of descriptive by meaning

adjectiveDescribing and seeking to classify, as opposed to normative or prescriptive.

  • He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2...

More sentences with descriptive

  • Methodologically, Wiktionary represents an implementation of the descriptive approach to linguistics and specifically to grammar.From the entry methodologically
  • "I pronounce you man and wife" is a descriptive statement, but also has illocutionary force.From the entry illocutionary
  • In descriptive fact, word senses are established by usage.From the entry usage
  • This qualitative descriptive study delves into the factors that promote positive police-community relations in Baguio City, Philippines.2024 August, Glena Gandalera Alos, Cora Murphy Dogui-is, Warren Moyao, Vicente Pangket Nayosan, “Police-Community Relations in Baguio…. From the entry Abanao - Zandueta - Chugum - Kayang - Otek
  • This is a highly descriptive and relevant way in which to interpret this life-stage.2007, Anne Grinyer, Young People Living With Cancer: Implications for Policy and Practice. From the entry thresholder
  • At the frontier of digital commerce, autolearning software can generate both descriptive and prescriptive knowledge for action.2002, Steven H. Kim, Smart Net: From Inert Data to Sentient Life. From the entry autolearning
  • I even wrote a descriptive essay about Fredrick for a writing assignment in college.1997 October 3, JCleverdon@comdt.uscg.mil [John Cleverdon], “Am I just getting Old?”, in rec.games.frp.dnd (Usenet), archived from the…. From the entry dungeon mistress
  • How can we distinguish a value statement from a descriptive one?1995, Warren A. Shibles, Emotion in Aesthetics. From the entry value statement
  • Most authors speak of a quasi-isomorphism or quism, but Bourbaki's term is more descriptive.1990, Jan R. Strooker, Homological Questions in Local Algebra, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 5. From the entry quism
  • In the promptive message mode, the user provides information in response to a descriptive message.1985, Patricia W. Hurst, Executive Control Systems in the Engineering Design Environment, (page 37)#. From the entry promptive
  • This equation is descriptive of a Cornu spiral, a spiral whose curvative increases linearly with arclength.1981, 25th IEEE Machine Tools Conference, 1981. From the entry curvative
  • We would like to suggest the purely descriptive term "granular polydendrocyte" instead.1964, JR Dupont, H Sprinz, “The neurovegetative periphery of the gut. A revaluation with conventional technics in the light of modern…. From the entry polydendrocyte
  • Excellent descriptive power and frequent brilliant lines in this adoxographic poem.1939, William Bradley Otis with Morriss H. Needleman, Outline-history of English Literature, 3rd edition, New York, N.Y.: Barnes & Noble…. From the entry adoxographic
  • Pukaki means a river source, the waterhead; so the name is literally descriptive.1931, New Zealand Railways Magazine - Volume 6, page 20. From the entry waterhead
  • Descriptive instruction therefore encourages and strengthens the grouped masses of ideas in the child-mind.1916, Richard David Chalke, A Syntheses of Froebel and Haerbart, page 118. From the entry child-mind
  • The unofficial status of microtoponymy on Vernon is illustrated by the matter-of-fact, spontaneous, and descriptive nature of such names.2013, Joshua Nash, Insular Toponymies: Place-naming on Norfolk Island, South Pacific and Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, →ISBN. From the entry microtoponymy
  • Is there a fallacy involved in deriving an ought from a set of exclusively factual or descriptive premises?2004, Jacques Maritain, John G. Trapani, Truth Matters: Essays in Honor of Jacques Maritain. From the entry ought
  • Metasyntactic values, in the sense I'm using here, are descriptive of syntax, as for example the nonterminals of a Chomsky grammar.2001, John N. Shutt, What is Grammar?. From the entry metasyntactic
  • According to the Fourth Circuit, “Coca-Cola” is “the paradigm of a descriptive mark that has acquired secondary meaning”.2000, Estate of William F. Jenkins v. Paramount Pictures Corp.. From the entry paradigm
  • Its early descriptive period was a long one, given the enormous diversity of biota and environments in freshwater ecosystems.1999, Michael T. Arts, Bruce C. Wainmann, editors, Foreword: Lipids in Freshwater Ecosystems, page v. From the entry limnology
  • As such it is both descriptive and normative."1998, Karen L. Bloomquist, John R. Stumme, The Promise of Lutheran Ethics, Fortress Press, →ISBN, page 11. From the entry Lutheranly
  • Obviously you don't know the difference between a prescriptive grammarian (a "grammarnazi") and a descriptive grammarian ("linguistic libertarian").1997 July 30, Tryptan Felle, “Contact, Religion, and Pi in the Sky”, in rec.arts.movies.current-films (Usenet). From the entry grammarnazi
  • La Fontaine's approach to cognitive relativism is descriptive and monitory.1996, Catherine Grisé, The Optics of Relativism in the Fables of La Fontaine, in Anne Lynn Birberick (editor), Refiguring la Fontaine…. From the entry cognitive relativism
  • But this descriptive commonplace is not sufficient to account for the sort of comportability-predicated integrity we have been talking about.1994, The Personalist Forum, volume 10 to 13, The Furman University Press - Originally: The Michigan University Press, page 159. From the entry comportability
  • Strange or not, the hocus-pocus linguist holds that we cannot invoke descriptive fidelity as a criterion for choosing between different representations.1993, Christopher Hutton, “Analysis and notation: the case for a non-realist linguistics”, in Rom Harré, Roy Harris, editors, Linguistics…. From the entry hocus-pocuser
  • It is Homer’s “asphodelos leimon,” the daffodilly mead or meadow, descriptive of Elysium, the Hesperides or western isles of departed shades.1992, A[lexander] B. Chambers, “[Robert] Herrick and the Ceremonies of Art”, in Transfigured Rites in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry…. From the entry daffodilly
  • They form extremely tight flocks, which carpet the ground, giving rise to the descriptive name of "a pack" of knots.1988, Michael Cady, Rob Hume, editors, The Complete Book of British Birds, page 154. From the entry pack
  • The systems called descriptive have fewer such lumpings; the terminology which prevails in the United States today serves as an example.1972, Wendell H. Oswalt, Other Peoples, Other Customs: World Ethnography and Its History. From the entry lumping
  • They wished to demask hidden metaphysics, to demask the false pretenses of sentences purportively descriptive but de facto metaphysical or evaluative.1968, Gerard Radnitzky · · Snippet view, Contemporary Schools of Metascience, page 114. From the entry pretense
  • Nounself pronouns are when you adapt a noun of your choosing into a pronoun to create a wide variety of very personal and descriptive pronouns.2021, Erin Ekins, Queerly Autistic The Ultimate Guide For LGBTQIA+ Teens On The Spectrum, page 105. From the entry nounself pronoun
  • I’m very descriptive when I ERP, I like it to be as real and visceral as possible, and they got off on that big time.2015 March 20, Ashley ML Brown, quoting Dirty [pseudonym], “ERP IRL”, in Sexuality in Role-Playing Games (Routledge Advances in Game…. From the entry ERP
  • The one-shot case study is appropriate for answering exploratory and descriptive research questions related to what exists at a certain point in time.2013, Judy L. Krysik, Jerry Finn, Research for Effective Social Work Practice, →ISBN. From the entry one-shot
  • For example, when nouns are reanalysed as determiners, they lose inherent descriptive content; when verbs are reanalysed as auxiliaries, they lose argument structure.[2010, Ian Roberts, “Grammaticalization, the clausal hierarchy and semantic bleaching”, in Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Graeme Trousdale…. From the entry semantic bleaching
  • I focus on communal descriptive problems—what I call American race talk dilemmas—rather than on all the lightheartednesses and small triumphs of daily life at Columbus.2009, Mica Pollock, Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School, →ISBN, page x. From the entry lightheartedness
  • Among the inscrutable terms invented to parse the stylistic subtleties of rock music, “bedroom pop” stands out as an elegantly descriptive coinage.[2006 January 26, Hugo Lindgren, “Garbagehead Revisited”, in New York. From the entry bedroom pop
  • In principle, the copyline (the descriptive tagline for the film) that is evolved for the campaign should work as a cohesive unit with the art.2005, Paul N. Lazarus, Produced By--: Balancing Art and Business in the Movie Industry, page 179. From the entry copyline
  • Hence, the descriptive content is close to nothing, and it is perhaps somewhat arbitrary whether one considers hab- to be alexical or lexical.2002, Werner Abraham, C. Jan-Wouter Zwart, Issues in formal German(ic) typology, page 157. From the entry alexical
  • Four properties that stand out as descriptive of behavior at its own level are agency, prospectivity, the search for order in the world, and flexibility.2000, Eleanor Jack Gibson, Anne D. Pick, An Ecological Approach to Perceptual Learning and Development, →ISBN. From the entry prospectivity
  • The qualifier is the descriptive part of the name that would probably make up the entire name if you weren't using Hungarian.1993, Steve McConnell, Code Complete. From the entry Hungarian

Meaning of descriptive

  1. adjective Of, relating to, or providing a description.
  2. adjective Of an adjective, stating an attribute of the associated noun (as heavy in the heavy dictionary).
  3. adjective Describing the structure, grammar, vocabulary and actual use of a language.

Full definition of descriptive

Questions about descriptive in a sentence

How do you use descriptive in a sentence?
Descriptive is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Methodologically, Wiktionary represents an implementation of the descriptive approach to linguistics and specifically to grammar.”
What is a short sentence with descriptive?
“As such it is both descriptive and normative."”
What does descriptive mean?
Descriptive means of, relating to, or providing a description.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: descriptive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use descriptive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/descriptive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.