a. (sb.) [ad. L. corruptīv-us liable to corruption (Tertull.), or a. F. corruptif, -ive (14th c.), f. stem of L. corrumpĕre: see -IVE.]
† 1. Subject or liable to corruption. Obs.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T. (1613), 180. That wee may receiue no corruptiue inheritance.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 84. Salt … does tye or hold the corruptive parts of the Flesh captive, that they cannot proceed to Putrifaction.
1691. Ray, Creation, II. (1704), 233. Some corruptive quality for so speedy a dissolution of the Meat.
2. That has the quality of corrupting; that tends to corrupt.
1609. Armin, Ital. Taylor, I ij b. To out-rime thy ill-reason’d cloze In thy corruptive prayse.
1640. Reynolds, Passions, iii. 16. Such a temper of Minde … is corruptive to the Memorie.
a. 1691. Boyle, Hist. Air, xii. (1692), 65. Lightning is not always destructive or corruptive of Vegetables.
1737. Whiston, Josephus’ Hist., IV. viii. § 3. This fountain … was entirely of a sickly and corruptive nature.
1818. Bentham, Ch. Eng., 332.
1884. F. Peek, in Contemp. Rev., July, 75. The association of the first offenders with the old and irreclaimable convicts is fatally corruptive.
† B. sb. A thing that tends to corrupt. Obs.
1641. Ld. Digby, in Rushw., Hist. Coll., III. (1692), I. 228. Of all these Corruptives of Judgment … I do, before God, discharge my self.
Hence Corruptively adv., in a corruptive manner.
1653. F. G., trans. Scudery’s Artamenes, VIII. II. (1655), 121. Forming that name out of two Greek words corruptively put together.
1851. G. S. Faber, Many Mansions (1862), 81. Corruptively derived from Primitive Patriarchal Tradition.
