emotive

American  

[ih-moh-tiv] / ɪˈmoʊ tɪv /

adjective

1. characterized by or pertaining to emotion.

   the emotive and rational capacities of humankind.

2. productive of or directed toward the emotions.

   Artistic distortion is often an emotive use of form.

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emotive British  

/ ɪˈməʊtɪv /

adjective

1. tending or designed to arouse emotion

2. of or characterized by emotion

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Usage

Emotional is preferred to emotive when describing a display of emotion: he was given an emotional (not emotive ) welcome

Other Word Forms

• emotively
  adverb
• emotiveness
  noun
• emotivity
  noun
• hyperemotive
  adjective
• hyperemotively
  adverb
• hyperemotiveness
  noun
• hyperemotivity
  noun
• nonemotive
  adjective
• nonemotively
  adverb
• nonemotiveness
  noun
• unemotive
  adjective
• unemotively
  adverb
• unemotiveness
  noun

Etymology

Origin of emotive

First recorded in 1725–35; emot(ion) + -ive

Explanation

Something described as emotive shows feeling. If you consider women more emotive than men, you think that women are more comfortable sharing their feelings than men. While the word emotive is similar to the word emotional, it's important to note that the two aren't interchangeable. Emotive is used with regard to something that makes you have intense feelings rather than just having intense feelings. For example, an emotive conversation will result in getting people's emotions riled up, while an emotional conversation is one in which people go into it with a lot of intense feelings already.

Example Sentences

In addition to co-founding Vantiq, Paul Butterworth co-founded the cloud platform development company Emotive and worked in computer engineering and technology roles at Oracle, Sun and Ingres.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 13, 2023

“Brands are targeting you without you even knowing it—it happens so fast,” says Bella Banbury, founding partner of Emotive Brand, a San Francisco-based brand-strategy firm, which reviewed the film.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 26, 2018

Emotive judgments are important: We should be able to say that in a world with enough food for everyone it’s a moral outrage that people are still starving to death.

From Slate • Aug. 31, 2016

"Emotive terms" made it very difficult to find a peaceful and sensible solution to the problem, she said at the news conference with Mr Kerry.

From BBC • May 22, 2016

Emotive perception being very much weakened, the integrity of memory must be less exact.

From Common Sense, How to Exercise It by Yoritomo-Tashi, Mme. Blanchard