a. [f. L. transmiss- (see TRANSMISS v.) + -IVE: cf. L. remissīvus remissive.]
1. Having the quality or action of transmitting.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., ccclxxxvi. Harry (who gave more Of fate in his Transmissive veins, then both Could worke) yet wraps the Infant in that Cloth.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., xxv. 231. The transmissive power of certain substances having a dark colour exceeds by four or five times that of others perfectly diaphanous.
1903. Union Mag., Oct., 437/1. The function of the brain is not ‘productive’ but ‘transmissive’ of consciousness.
2. Having the quality of being transmitted.
1700. Prior, Carmen Seculare, 164. The Sire [may] inculcate to his Son Transmissive Lessons of the King’s Renown.
1775. R. Chandler, Trav. Greece (1825), II. 152. The native quickness of apprehension, which as if transmissive,… is inherited even by the lower classes of the people.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), I. 68. Modifications of the genus of transmitted or transmissive evidence.
1887. L. P. Mercer, New Birth (1890), 74. Transmissive dispositions and proclivities to evil, coming down a long line of tainted ancestry.
Hence Transmissively adv., by way of transmission; Transmissiveness.
1867. Glasgow Herald, 28 June, 6/7. Shares vested transmissively in the children who predeceased their parent.
1881. Sir W. Armstrong, in Nature, 8 Sept., 451/2. There will be a limit to the distance to which electricity may be profitably conveyed, but within that limit there will be wide scope for its employment transmissively.
1889. Home Missionary (N.Y.), Sept., 220. The aim is transmissiveness of the divine motive power.
