Giving form; having the power of giving form; plastic; as, the formative arts. [1913 Webster]
"The meanest plant can not be raised without seed, by any formative residing in the soil." [1913 Webster]
Serving to form; derivative; not radical; as, a termination merely formative. [1913 Webster]
Capable of growth and development; germinal; as, living or formative matter. [1913 Webster]

formative, n.

That which serves merely to give form, and is no part of the radical, as the prefix or the termination of a word. [1913 Webster]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

formative, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 serving to form or fashion; of formation.
2 Gram. (of a flexional or derivative suffix or prefix) used in forming words.
--n. Gram. a formative element.

Derivative

formatively adv.

Etymology

ME f. OF formatif -ive or med.L formativus (as FORM)

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THESAURUS

formative

IC analysis, abecedarian, aboriginal, accidence, adaptable, affix, affixation, allomorph, antenatal, autochthonous, beginning, behind the scenes, bendable, bending, bound morpheme, budding, causal, causative, compliant, component, conjugation, constituent, constitutive, constructive, creative, cutting, decisive, declension, demiurgic, derivation, determinative, difference of form, ductile, effectual, elastic, elemental, elementary, embryonic, enclitic, etiological, extensible, extensile, fabricable, facile, fetal, fictile, flexible, flexile, flexuous, formable, formal, formational, foundational, free form, fundamental, generative, gestatory, giving, immediate constituent analysis, impressible, impressionable, in embryo, in its infancy, in the bud, inaugural, inceptive, inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incunabular, infant, infantile, infix, infixation, inflection, initial, initiative, initiatory, institutive, integral, integrant, introductory, inventive, like putty, limber, lissome, lithe, lithesome, malleable, moldable, morph, morpheme, morphemic analysis, morphemics, morphology, morphophonemics, morphotic, nascent, natal, occasional, original, originative, paradigm, parturient, pivotal, plastic, pliable, pliant, postnatal, prefix, prefixation, pregnant, prenatal, primal, primary, prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, proclitic, procreative, productive, radical, receptive, responsive, root, rudimental, rudimentary, sensitive, sequacious, shapable, springy, stem, submissive, suffix, suffixation, supple, susceptible, theme, tractable, tractile, ur, whippy, willowy, word-formation, yielding

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ROGET THESAURUS

formative

Production

N production, creation, construction, formation, fabrication, manufacture, building, architecture, erection, edification, coinage, diaster, organization, nisus formativus, putting together, establishment, workmanship, performance, achievement, flowering, fructification, inflorescence, bringing forth, parturition, birth, birth-throe, childbirth, delivery, confinement, accouchement, travail, labor, midwifery, obstetrics, geniture, gestation, assimilation, evolution, development, growth, entelechy, fertilization, gemination, germination, heterogamy, genesis, generation, epigenesis, procreation, progeneration, propagation, fecundation, impregnation, albumen, spontaneous generation, archegenesis, archebiosis, biogenesis, abiogenesis, digenesis, dysmerogenesis, eumerogenesis, heterogenesis, oogenesis, merogenesis, metogenesis, monogenesis, parthenogenesis, homogenesis, xenogenesis, authorship, publication, works, opus, oeuvre, biogeny, dissogeny, xenogeny, tocogony, vacuolization, edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit, produced, producing, productive of, prolific, creative, formative, genetic, genial, genital, pregnant, enceinte, big with, fraught with, in the family way, teeming, parturient, in the straw, brought to bed of, puerperal, puerperous, digenetic, heterogenetic, oogenetic, xenogenetic, ectogenous, gamic, haematobious, sporogenous, sporophorous, architectonic, ex nihilo nihil, fiat lux, materiam superabat opus, nemo dat quod non habet.

Form

N form, figure, shape, conformation, configuration, make, formation, frame, construction, cut, set, build, trim, cut of one's jib, stamp, type, cast, mold, fashion, contour, structure, plasmature, feature, lineament, turn, phase, posture, attitude, pose, morphism, isomorphism, forming, formation, figuration, efformation, sculpture, plasmation, formed, plastic, fictile, formative, fluid, plasmic, isomorphous, pleomorphic, protean, changeable.

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