arrestive

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

arrest +‎ -ive

Adjective[edit]

arrestive (comparative more arrestive, superlative most arrestive)

  1. Tending to arrest.
    1. Tending to stop or slow a process.
      • 1850, James McCosh, The Method of the Divine Government[1], New York: Robert Caster, published 1851, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 422:
        Some [emotions] are Instigative, and others Arrestive.
      • 1973, Hugh Downs, chapter 11, in Potential: The Way to Emotional Maturity[2], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 188:
        This reactive recoiling from something clearly in our nature is itself unnatural. It is as arrestive of emotional progress as the opposite practice of uncontrolled indulgence, which is a symptom, not a cause, of emotional immaturity.
      • 2006, Mea A. Weinberg et al., chapter 21, in Comprehensive Periodontics for the Dental Hygienist[3], 2nd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, page 315:
        [] most periodontal therapy aims to prevent the initiation, progression, or recurrence of periodontal diseases. This can be termed arrestive periodontal therapy.
    2. (dated) Tending to capture people’s attention.
      Synonyms: arresting, captivating, conspicuous, remarkable, striking
      • 1870, Margaret Junkin Preston, “The Color-Bearer”, in Old Song and New[4], Philadelphia: Lippincott, p. ,144:
        As fast they pressed with laboring breath,
        Clinched teeth and knitted frown,
        The sharp, arrestive cry rang out,—
        The color-bearer’s down!
      • 1899, Israel Zangwill, “Bethulah”, in They That Walk in Darkness: Ghetto Tragedies[5], Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, pages 198–199:
        I noted a curious streak of yellow in the silvered eyebrows, as if youth clung on, so to speak, by a single hair, and underneath these arrestive eyebrows green pupils alternately glowed and smouldered.
      • 1916, C. Alphonso Smith, chapter 1, in O. Henry Biography[6], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 3:
        First, the reader notices in an O. Henry story the quiet but arrestive beginning.

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