prescriptive
Americanadjective
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that prescribes; giving directions or injunctions.
a prescriptive letter from an anxious father.
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depending on or arising from effective legal prescription, as a right or title established by a long unchallenged tenure.
adjective
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making or giving directions, rules, or injunctions
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sanctioned by long-standing usage or custom
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derived from or based upon legal prescription
a prescriptive title
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of prescriptive
First recorded in 1740–50; prescript + -ive, modeled on descriptive, destructive, etc.
Explanation
Prescriptive things have to do with giving rules or directions. Prescriptive advice tells you what to do. When the doctor writes a prescription, he or she is telling you to get a particular drug and take it. Similarly, anything prescriptive involves telling people what to do. People are prescriptive when they're sure of what’s right. "You have several options" is not prescriptive, but "You should do this" is very prescriptive. A bossy person is very prescriptive.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The process is prescriptive, but the effect is liberating.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 2, 2026
In its place: a more prescriptive framework that explicitly warns against the health risk of ultra-processed foods, and calls for Americans to eat more protein, embrace saturated fat, and cut back on carbohydrates.
From Barron's • Jan. 7, 2026
Coming from another breed of mom, this would be a prelude to prescriptive punishment.
From Salon • Oct. 16, 2025
The other factor—the prescriptive part—was the large number of skilled artisans and engineers in Britain.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 13, 2025
But as Galton’s hypothesis about “ancestral inheritance” had been dismantled, piece by piece, by Bateson and de Vries, Galton had taken a sharp turn from a descriptive impulse to a prescriptive one.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
