a. and sb. [ad. L. explicātīv-us, f. explicāre: see EXPLICATE v.]
A. adj.
† 1. Tending to unfold, or to unfold itself; expansive. In quot. fig. Obs.
1627–77. Feltham, Resolves, I. xxiv. 43. How contrary it is to Christianity, and the Nature of explicative Love.
2. a. Having the function of explaining; explanatory, interpretative. † Of a person: Explicit, affording explanation. b. Logic. Of a proposition or judgment: That merely explains what is implied in the subject; = ESSENTIAL. † c. Gram. (see quot. 1824).
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., II. ix. 123. Here is forbidden … an anger with deliberation, and purpose of revenge, this being explicative and additionall to the precept forbidding murder.
1725. Watts, Logick, II. ii. § 5. 257. The term … is called explicative, for it only explains the Subject.
1757. Herald (1758), I. No. 4. 62. I shall be particularly explicative in the course of these publications.
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 216. An explicative sentence is, when a thing is said to be or not to be … in a direct manner.
1852. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss., 273. In Mathematics, the whole science … is only the evolution of a potential knowledge into an actual, and its procedure is thus merely explicative.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, II. i. 207. The new judgments … are all explicative or analytic.
1878. P. Bayne, Purit. Rev., x. 393. These are for Mr. Carlyle, the vital, the explicative facts in Cromwell’s career and character.
B. sb. An explicative term.
1775. Adair, Amer. Ind., 76–7. And by the first name [green ear of corn], the Indians, as an explicative, term their passover, which the trading people call the green-corn dance.
1864. Bowen, Logic, v. 144. With regard to Explicatives.
Hence Explicatively adv., in an explanatory manner.
1775. Adair, Amer. Ind., 22. They often call the bleak north-wind, explicatively, very evil, and accursed.
