The building blocks of English

Affixes

-ive

Also ‑ivity and ‑iveness.

Showing a quality or tendency.

French ‑if, ‑ive, from Latin ‑ivus.

Most examples of words in this ending are adjectives: active, attractive, consecutive, corrosive, destructive, extensive, passive, subversive, and vindictive. Some can act both as adjectives and nouns: captive, corrective, explosive, native, sedative, subjunctive. A few are nouns only: adjective, incentive, locomotive, missive. Related abstract nouns are created using either ‑iveness (decisiveness, furtiveness, restiveness) or ‑ivity (activity, captivity, festivity).

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