restrictive clause

American  

noun

Grammar.

1. a relative clause that identifies the antecedent and that is usually not set off by commas in English. In The year that just ended was bad for crops, the clause that just ended is a restrictive clause.

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Etymology

Origin of restrictive clause

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

A restrictive clause does not want to be separate from what it modifies: it wants to be one with it, to be essential to it, to identify with it totally.

From The New Yorker • Feb. 16, 2015

Georgia-born Secretary of State Dean Rusk flatly refused to sign a restrictive clause attached to the sale of the house he wanted in exclusive Spring Valley.

From Time Magazine Archive

The restrictive clause was not part of the standard printed document, but had been typed in specifically.

From Time Magazine Archive

A restrictive clause is not separated by a comma from the noun.

From The Verbalist A Manual Devoted to Brief Discussions of the Right and the Wrong Use of Words and to Some Other Matters of Interest to Those Who Would Speak and Write with Propriety. by Osmun, Thomas Embly

The debate opened on an amendment by Senator Hale to the Appropriation bill before the Senate to repeal the restrictive clause of the Kansas Admission act.

From Presidential Candidates: containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860 by Bartlett, D. W.