prescriptive

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: pre=scrip=tive

CIDE DICTIONARY

prescriptive, a. [L. praescriptivus of a demurrer or legal exception.].

•  Consisting in, or acquired by, immemorial or long-continued use and enjoyment; as, a prescriptive right of title; pleading the continuance and authority of long custom.  [1913 Webster]

  "The right to be drowsy in protracted toil has become prescriptive."  [1913 Webster]
•  Of or pertaining to the doctrine that acceptable grammatical rules should be prescribed by authority, rather than be determined by common usage.  [PJC]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

prescriptive, adj.
1 prescribing.
2 Linguistics concerned with or laying down rules of usage.
3 based on prescription (prescriptive right).
4 prescribed by custom.

Derivative

prescriptively adv. prescriptiveness n. prescriptivism n. prescriptivist n. & adj.

Etymology

LL praescriptivus (as PRESCRIBE)

THESAURUS

prescriptive

absolute, accepted, accustomed, acknowledged, admitted, authoritarian, authoritative, autocratic, average, binding, canonical, commanding, common, commonplace, compelling, compulsory, conclusive, conformable, constrictive, consuetudinary, conventional, current, customary, decisive, decretal, decretive, decretory, dictated, dictating, dictatorial, didactic, directive, dogmatic, entailed, established, ethnocentric, everyday, exceptional, excluding, exclusive, exclusory, familiar, final, fixed, folk, formulary, generally accepted, habitual, hallowed, handed down, hard and fast, hard-and-fast, heroic, hoary, household, immemorial, imperative, imperious, imposed, inadmissible, instructive, insular, inveterate, irrevocable, jussive, legendary, long-established, long-standing, mandated, mandating, mandatory, must, mythological, narrow, normal, normative, obligating, obligatory, obtaining, of long standing, of the folk, official, oral, ordinary, overbearing, parochial, peremptory, popular, preceptive, preclusive, predominating, prescribed, prescript, prevailing, prevalent, preventive, prohibitive, received, recognized, regular, regulation, required, restrictive, rooted, rubric, seclusive, segregative, select, selective, separative, set, snobbish, standard, statutory, stock, time-honored, traditional, tried and true, true-blue, ultimate, understood, universal, unwritten, usual, venerable, vernacular, widespread, without appeal, wonted, worshipful, xenophobic

ROGET THESAURUS

prescriptive

Habit

N habit, habitude, assuetude, assuefaction, wont, run, way, common state of things, general state of things, natural state of things, ordinary state of things, ordinary course of things, ordinary run of things, matter of course, beaten path, beaten track, beaten ground, prescription, custom, use, usage, immemorial usage, practice, prevalence, observance, conventionalism, conventionality, mode, fashion, vogue, etiquette, order of the day, cry, conformity, consuetude, dustoor, one's old way, old school, veteris vestigia flammae, laudator temporis acti, rule, standing order, precedent, routine, red-tape, red-tapism, pipe clay, rut, groove, cacoethes, bad habit, confirmed habit, inveterate habit, intrinsic habit, addiction, trick, training, seasoning, second nature, acclimatization, knack, habitual, accustomary, prescriptive, accustomed, of daily occurrence, of everyday occurrence, consuetudinary, wonted, usual, general, ordinary, common, frequent, everyday, household, garden variety, jog, trot, well-trodden, well-known, familiar, vernacular, trite, commonplace, conventional, regular, set, stock, established, stereotyped, prevailing, prevalent, current, received, acknowledged, recognized, accredited, of course, admitted, understood, conformable, according to use, according to custom, according to routine, in vogue, in fashion, in, with it, fashionable, wont, used to, given to, addicted to, attuned to, habituated, in the habit of, habitue, at home in, seasoned, imbued with, devoted to, wedded to, hackneyed, fixed, rooted, deep-rooted, ingrafted, permanent, inveterate, besetting, naturalized, ingrained, habitually, always, as usual, as is one's wont, as things go, as the world goes, as the sparks fly upwards, more suo, more solito, ex more, as a rule, for the most part, usually, generally, typically, most often, most frequently, cela s'entend, abeunt studia in mores, adeo in teneris consuescere multum est, consuetudo quasi altera natura, hoc erat in more majorum, How use doth breed a habit in a man!, magna est vis consuetudinis, morent fecerat usus.

Oldness

N oldness, age, antiquity, cobwebs of antiquity, maturity, decline, decay, senility, seniority, eldership, primogeniture, archaism, thing of the past, relic of the past, megatherium, Sanskrit, tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law, old, ancient, antique, of long standing, time-honored, venerable, elder, eldest, firstborn, prime, primitive, primeval, primigenous, paleolontological, paleontologic, paleoanthropological, paleoanthropic, paleolithic, primordial, primordinate, aboriginal, diluvian, antediluvian, protohistoric, prehistoric, antebellum, colonial, precolumbian, patriarchal, preadamite, paleocrystic, fossil, paleozoolical, paleozoic, preglacial, antemundane, archaic, classic, medieval, Pre-Raphaelite, ancestral, black-letter, immemorial, traditional, prescriptive, customary, whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contr, inveterate, rooted, antiquated, of other times, rococo, of the old school, after-age, obsolete, out of date, out of fashion, out of it, stale, old-fashioned, behind the age, old-world, exploded, gone out, gone by, passe, run out, senile, time worn, crumbling, secondhand, old as the hills, old as Methuselah, old as Adam, old as history, Archeozoic, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Paleogene, Neocene, Quaternary, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent, since the world was made, since the year one, since the days of Methuselah, vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.

Permanence

N permanence, stability, quiescence, obstinacy, permanence, persistence, endurance, durability, standing, status quo, maintenance, preservation, conservation, conservation, law of the Medes and Persians, standing dish, stable, persisting, permanent, established, unchanged &c (change), renewed, intact, inviolate, persistent, monotonous, uncheckered, unfailing, undestroyed, unrepealed, unsuppressed, conservative, qualis ab incepto, prescriptive, stationary, in statu quo, for good, finally, at a stand, at a standstill, uti possidetis, without a shadow of turning, esto perpetua, nolumus leges Angliae mutari, j'y suis et j'y ereste.

Dueness

N due, dueness, right, privilege, prerogative, prescription, title, claim, pretension, demand, birthright, immunity, license, liberty, franchise, vested interest, vested right, sanction, authority, warranty, charter, warrant, constitution, tenure, bond, claimant, appellant, plaintiff, having a right to, entitled to, claiming, deserving, meriting, worthy of, privileged, allowed, sanctioned, warranted, authorized, ordained, prescribed, constitutional, chartered, enfranchised, prescriptive, presumptive, absolute, indefeasible, unalienable, inalienable, imprescriptible, inviolable, unimpeachable, unchallenged, sacrosanct, due to, merited, deserved, condign, richly deserved, allowable, lawful, licit, legitimate, legal, legalized, square, unexceptionable, right, equitable, due, en r gle, fit, fitting, correct, proper, meet, befitting, becoming, seemly, decorous, creditable, up to the mark, right as a trivet, just the thing, quite the thing, selon les r gles, duly, ex officio, de jure, by right, by divine right, jure divino, Dei gratia, in the name of, civis Romanus sum, +a chaque saint sa chandelle.