| a. | 1. | Tending to describe; having the quality of representing; containing description;
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| Adj. | 1. | descriptive - serving to describe or inform or characterized by description; "the descriptive variable"; "a descriptive passage" Antonyms: undescriptive - not successful in describing |
| 2. | descriptive - concerned with phenomena (especially language) at a particular period without considering historical antecedents; "synchronic linguistics"; "descriptive linguistics" Synonyms: synchronic | |
| 3. | descriptive - describing the structure of a language; "descriptive linguistics simply describes language" Antonyms: prescriptive, normative - giving directives or rules; "prescriptive grammar is concerned with norms of or rules for correct usage" |