distinctive

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   of a feature that helps to distinguish a person or thing

   Jerusalem has a distinctive Middle East flavor- Curtis Wilkie

2. 2
   adj

   Distinguishing, used to or enabling the distinguishing of some thing.

   a product in distinctive packaging

3. 3
   adj

   Discriminating, discerning, having the ability to distinguish between things.

   […]more judicious and distinctive heads...

4. 4
   adj

   Characteristic, typical.

   his distinctive bass voice

5. 5
   adj

   Distinguished, being distinct in character or position.

   The refugees... at length ceased to exist as a distinctive body among the people.

6. 6
   adj

   Used to separate clauses in place of stops.

   These are the main distinctive accents, and by stopping at them... the reader will do justice to the sense.

7. 7
   adj

   Distinguishing a particular sense of word.

   Normally we symbolize only phonemes (distinctive features) so far as we can determine them.

8. 8
   noun

   A distinctive thing: a quality or property permitting distinguishing; a characteristic.

   ...the red umbrella, the distinctive of royalty here...

Etymology

From Latin distinctus, perfect passive participle of distinguere (“to push apart, to divide”), + -ive (forming adjectives signifying relation or tendency to). Cognate with French distinctif and Medieval Latin distinctivus.