a. and sb. [ad. med.L. quantitātīvus: see QUANTITY and -IVE. Cf. F. quantitatif (1586 in Godef., Compl.).]
A. 1. Possessing quantity, magnitude, or spatial extent. Now rare.
1581. Marbeck, Bk. of Notes, 40. [Angels occupy] no bodilie place, no severall nor quantitative place.
1634. Jackson, Creed, VII. xxvi. § 5. The world in the original doth not signify this visible or quantitative world.
1697. J. Sergeant, Solid Philos., 22. The Body, only which (and not the Soul) is Quantitative.
1847. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (1867), II. 481. The fact that we discover quantitative space and time.
2. That is, or may be, considered with respect to the quantity or quantities involved; estimated or estimable by quantity.
1656. Artif. Handsom., 44. This Quantitative Adultery, which … makes far more grosse alterations, & substantiall changes of nature.
1661. Glanvill, Van. Dogm., 220–1. The colour of mens eyes is various, nor is there less diversity in their quantitative proportions.
1842. Grove, Corr. Phys. For. (ed. 6), 142. An invariable quantitative relation to each other.
1858. J. Martineau, Stud. Chr., 160. Not as its quantitative equal … but as a moral equivalent.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 43. The enormous error that man … can win by quantitative goodness his entrance into the Kingdom of God.
3. Relating to, concerned with, quantity or its measurement; ascertaining or expressing quantity.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., III. vii. 325. Relative and Quantitative Pronouns.
1830. Herschel, Stud. Nat. Phil., 123. It is a character of all the higher laws of nature to assume the form of precise quantitative statement.
1849. D. Campbell, Inorg. Chem., Pref. 4. Tables for assisting in the calculations of quantitative analysis.
1882. Farrar, Early Chr., I. 125. The quantitative conceptions of Jewish formalism.
4. Pertaining to, based on, vowel-quantity.
1799. Monthly Rev., XXIX. 49. The quantitative accent, as it may be called, follows the analogy of the Latin.
1871. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 241. The best quantitative verses in our language are to be found in Mother Goose.
B. sb. † a. A sign that indicates quantity. Obs. b. That which possesses or involves quantity.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., III. ii. 305. Of all which [pronouns] it is to be observed, that they are in some kind or other, Quantitatives.
1846. Sabine, trans. Humboldt’s Cosmos (1847), I. 179. An effort … to investigate the quantitative in the laws of one of the great phænomena of nature.
