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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

directive.

That which directs; serving to direct, indicate, or guide.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/daɪˈɹɛk.tɪv/UK/dɪˈɹɛk.tɪv/UK/dəˈɹɛk.tɪv/Canada, General-American/dɪˈɹɛk.tɪv/Canada, General-American
  1. That which directs; serving to direct, indicate, or guide.

    not-comparable
  2. Relating to the directive case.

    not-comparable
Where this word comes from

From Middle French directif. The noun senses are from French directive (feminine form of the adjective).

noun/daɪˈɹɛk.tɪv/UK/dɪˈɹɛk.tɪv/UK/dəˈɹɛk.tɪv/Canada, General-American/dɪˈɹɛk.tɪv/Canada, General-American
  1. An instruction or guideline that indicates how to perform an action or reach a goal.

  2. A construct in source code that indicates how it should be processed but is not necessarily part of the program to be run.

  3. An authoritative decision from an official body, which may or may not have binding force.

  4. A form of legislative act addressed to the member states. The directive binds the member state to reach certain objectives in their national legislation.

    European-Union
  5. The directive case.

Where this word comes from

From Middle French directif. The noun senses are from French directive (feminine form of the adjective).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.