habitative

English

Etymology

habitat +‎ -ive

Adjective

habitative (comparative more habitative, superlative most habitative)

1. (linguistics) Indicating the types of structures, shelters, places of worship, or organization of homes in a community.
   • 1981, Yoel L. Arbeitman, Allan R. Bomhard, Bono Homini Donum, page 712:

     It is highly worthy of note that Berber indicates the habitative, in all the derived stems, by a vocalism, more consistently even than Akkadian (exceptions to this rule are only seemingly so).

   • 1993, R. A. Croft, Dennis C. Mynard, Margaret Gelling, The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes: Maps, page 47:

     Another habitative term occurs in Castlethorpe, which was probably originally a simplex name from Old English throp, thought to denote a settlement initially dependent on a more important place.

   • 2002, Nick Corcos, The affinities and antecedents of medieval settlement, page 163:

     Taking this fact into account increases the density of known habitative names at Shapwick to 1 about every 185 acres.

2. Pertaining to habitation.
   • 1851, The London Quarterly Review, page 165:

     The fiend himself, when started on his ill-intentioned cruise into chaos, could scarcely display a wider range of locomotive and habitative powers.

   • 1854, Homes of American Statesmen, pages 183–184:

     Thus, whatever idea, whatever purpose, whatever need, whatever fancy, predominates in him when he builds, it takes shape, it finds expression, it embodies itself, forthwith, in fitting material, fittingly contrived, and is, according to his habitative wish, his taste in a tabernacle, possibly a pig-sty, possibly a palace; for his range of invention stretches over every thing that lies between the two.

   • 2012, Koos Malan, Politocracy: An Assessment of the Coercive Logic of the Territorial State and Ideas Around a Response to it, page 282:

     According to the principle of subsidiarity, government should be as habitative as possible. Government functions must therefore be exercised at the most habitative level, as close as possible to those affected by the exercise of such functions.

   • 2013, Simon Esmonde Cleary, The Roman West, AD 200-500: An Archaeological Study, page 264:

     In this chapter we shall examine the countryside more in habitative and economic terms: what were the settlement patterns, social structures and economic formations of the countryside?