a. and sb. [ad. L. conjunctīv-us, f. conjunct- ppl. stem: see CONJUNCT and -IVE. In F. conjonctif, -ive (16th c.).]
1. Having the property or effect of conjoining; serving to conjoin or unite; connective. Conjunctive tissue: connective tissue.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., III. i. (1588), 315. The power giuen by the Statute … was delivered with such conjunctive and generall words, viz. To the Shirife and other the Kings Ministers.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., V. v. 240. All the Navell therefore and conjunctive part we can suppose in Adam, was his dependency on his Maker.
1823. J. Badcock, Dom. Amusem., 126. A wire united the extremities of the pile … and the wire from its application receives the name of ‘conjunctive wire.’
1856–8. W. Clark, Van der Hoeven’s Zool., I. 10. Conjunctive Tissue, ordinarily Cellular Membrane or Areolar Tissue.
1879. Sala, in Daily Tel., 12 June. In 1812 the conjunctive waterway called the Regent’s Canal was commenced.
2. Conjunct, conjoined, united; = CONJUNCT 1.
1604. Shaks., Oth., I. iii. 374. Let vs be coniunctiue in our reuenge, against him.
1694. Child, Disc. Trade (ed. 4), 103. All must be conjunctive, but one body politick, or the work will never be done.
1727. Thomson, Summer (1738), 1178. To live like Brothers, and conjunctive all Embellish Life.
1884. Kendal Merc. & Times, 3 Oct., 5/6. His conjunctive admission that he was not prepared to propose any substitute was received with considerable laughter.
† b. Having a relation of conjunction or union.
1602. Shaks., Ham., IV. vii. 14. She’s so coniunctiue to my life and soule; That as the Starre moues not but in his Sphere, I could not but by her.
c. Of or pertaining to united action; done in conjunction; joint; = CONJUNCT 2.
1694. Falle, Jersey, iv. 106. Make conjunctive Records of their Proceedings with them.
a. 1720. Sheffield (Dk. Buckhm.), Wks. (1753), II. 87. Content with a conjunctive Sovereignty.
1779–81. Johnson, L. P., Sheffield, Wks. III. 123. He voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon this principle, that he thought the title of the prince and his consort equal.
3. Gram. a. Having the function of connecting words or clauses, connective; of the nature of a conjunction. b. Having the function of uniting the sense as well as the construction, copulative, as in conjunctive conjunction.
a. 1667. Jer. Taylor, Wks., I. xxiii. (R.). I am induc’d fully to this understanding of St. Paul’s words by the conjunctive particle [ῆ] which he uses.
1751. Harris, Hermes, Wks. (1841), 187. Though all conjunctions conjoin sentences, yet, with respect to the sense, some are conjunctive, and some disjunctive.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), VI. 186. It could not be carried into effect, without construing the word or in a conjunctive sense.
1879. Bain, Higher Eng. Gram., 101. Therefore serves the office of … a conjunctive adverb.
c. Applied to that form or ‘mood’ of the verb that can be used only in conjunction with another verb, indicative, imperative, or also conjunctive (as in a hypothetical sentence).
Both modus conjunctīvus and m. subjunctīvus were used by the Latin Grammarians of the 4th c. Isidore, Orig., I. viii. 4. (a. 640) has only conjunctīvus, ‘quia ei conjungitur aliquid, ut locutio plena sit.’ Littré cites subjonctif ou conjonctif from Meigret, 1550. In English use Subjunctive was the usual name until comparatively recent times. It is now used by some in a narrower sense than Conjunctive: see quot. 1871.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), The Conjunctive (or Subjunctive) Mood of a Verb.
1755. Johnson, Conjunctive, adj. … (In grammar.) The mood of a verb, used subsequently to a conjunction.
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 152. Some grammarians apply, what is called the conjunctive termination, to the persons of the principal verb, and to its auxiliaries, through all the tenses of the subjunctive mood.
1871. Publ. Sch. Lat. Gram., 96. The Conjunctive Mood is for conceptive statement: as gandeam si absit. When this Mood appears in principal construction, we call it the pure conjunctive, as gaudeam: when it depends on another Verb, it is called Subjunctive, as absit. Ibid., 167. Examples of the Conjunctive Mood used Subjunctively.
4. Logic. Applied to a complex (hypothetical) proposition in which the clauses are related as antecedent and consequent; also to a syllogism that has such a proposition for its major premise; conditional.
c. 1848. Sir W. Hamilton, Logic, II. App. 369. The Conjunctive and Disjunctive forms of Hypothetical reasoning are reducible to immediate inferences. Ibid. (1849), 378. Hypotheticals (Conjunctive and Disjunctive Syllogism).
1866–87. Fowler, Deduct. Logic, 112. Ibid., 115. The most common form … of a conjunctive syllogism is that in which the major is a conjunctive, and the minor a simple proposition.
1888. Hatch, Hibbert Lect. (1891), 131 (transl. Greek author). If one advances any express statement of the divine Scripture, they try to find out whether it can form a conjunctive or a disjunctive hypothetical.
† 5. Conjunctive membrane, tunic: CONJUNCTIVA.
1658. Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1095. In the conjunctive membrane, or white of the eye as they commonly call it.
1834. Good, Study Med. (ed. 4), II. 207. A free abstraction of blood by Leeches applied to the conjunctive tunic itself.
B. sb.
1. Gram. a. A conjunctive or connective word, a conjunction; a ‘conjunctive’ or copulative conjunction (see A. 3). b. The conjunctive mood.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. xvi. (Arb.), 186. Euery clause is knit and coupled together with a coniunctiue.
1590. Swinburne, Testaments, 253. This disiunctiue or, standeth properly, and is not changed into a coniunctiue.
1756. Connoisseur, No. 138. The significant conjunctive and.
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 313. A double conjunctive, in two correspondent clauses … is sometimes made use of: as, ‘Had he done this, he had escaped.’
2. Logic. A conjunctive proposition or syllogism: see A 4.
1848. Sir W. Hamilton, Logic, II. App. 372. The Conjunctives are conditional inasmuch as … the quality of one proposition is made dependent on another.
† 3. Anat. = CONJUNCTIVA. Obs.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., V. 54, note. There are six tunicles belonging to the eye: The first called the conjunctive.
1751. Spry, in Phil. Trans., XLIX. 19. The conjunctive became greatly inflamed.
4. Math. ‘A syzygetic function of a given set of functions.’
1853. Sylvester, in Phil. Trans., CXLIII. I. 410. I demonstrate that the most general form of a conjunctive of any degree in x will be a linear function of the Bezoutics. Ibid., 543. Any function which universally, and subject to no cases of exception, vanishes when a certain number of other functions all vanish together, must be a conjunctive (i.e. a syzygetic function), or a root of a conjunctive of such functions.
