formative.
Capable of forming something.
Meaning & usage
Capable of forming something.
Capable of forming something. Capable of producing new tissue.
Capable of forming something. Pertaining to the formation of words; specifically, of an affix: forming words through inflection.
Of or pertaining to the formation and subsequent growth of something.
My formative years were spent in an inner city.
Of a form of assessment: used to guide learning rather than to quantify educational outcomes.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English formatyve, formatif (“having the ability to form”), from Old French formatif, formative (modern French formatif), from Medieval Latin formātīvus, from Latin fōrmātus + -īvus (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘doing’ or ‘related to doing’). Fōrmātus is the perfect passive participle of fōrmō (“to form, to shape”), from fōrma (“a form, shape”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “a form, shape”) (see further at that entry). By surface analysis, form + -ative.
A thing which causes formation to occur.
A language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function (that is, forming a word from a root or another word).
Synonym of derivative (“a word that derives from another one”).
Where this word comes from
Etymology 2 sense 1 (“thing which causes formation to occur”) is derived from the noun. Etymology 2 sense 2.1 (“language unit”) is borrowed from German Formativ, a noun use of formativ (adjective), from Middle French formatif, from Old French formatif (see etymology 1).
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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.