prescriptive
[pri-skrip-tiv]
- that prescribes; giving directions or injunctions: a prescriptive letter from an anxious father.
- depending on or arising from effective legal prescription, as a right or title established by a long unchallenged tenure.
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Origin of prescriptive
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for prescriptive
Contemporary Examples
The fact that some prescriptive rules are valuable does not mean that every grammatical injunction should be obeyed.
It was descriptive, prescriptive, and exemplary in its clarity.
Simmons knows she faces an uphill battle—but her goal this time around is to be prescriptive about the problem.
Historical Examples
She has a prescriptive right to the society of the man who arrives.
American NotesRudyard Kipling
How or when they obtained this prescriptive right is unknown to me.
Niels Klim's journey under the groundBaron Ludvig Holberg
The farmers have the prescriptive right of that, so we have to look to you to keep your fence in repair.
The OctopusFrank Norris
They have a prescriptive right to enter every garden in the village.
Field and HedgerowRichard Jefferies
Dreams have been considered as prescriptive in various diseases.
Curiosities of Medical ExperienceJ. G. (John Gideon) Millingen
prescriptive
- making or giving directions, rules, or injunctions
- sanctioned by long-standing usage or custom
- derived from or based upon legal prescriptiona prescriptive title
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for prescriptive
adj.
1748, from Late Latin praescriptivus, from praescript-, past participle stem of praescribere (see prescription). Or formed in English from archaic prescript "a direction" (1530s), from Latin praescriptum.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper