4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Distributive \Dis*trib"u*tive\, adjective [Cf. F. distributif.]

1. Tending to distribute; serving to divide and assign in portions; dealing to each his proper share. ''Distributive justice.'' --Swift.

2. (Logic) Assigning the species of a general term.

3. (Gram.) Expressing separation; denoting a taking singly, not collectively; as, a distributive adjective or pronoun, such as each, either, every; a distributive numeral, as (Latin) bini (two by two).

{Distributive operation} (Math.), any operation which either consists of two or more parts, or works upon two or more things, and which is such that the result of the total operation is the same as the aggregated result of the two or more partial operations. Ordinary multiplication is distributive, since a [times] (b + c) = ab + ac, and (a + b) [times] c = ac + bc.

{Distributive proportion}. (Math.) See {Fellowship}.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Distributive \Dis*trib"u*tive\, noun (Gram.) A distributive adjective or pronoun; also, a distributive numeral.

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

distributive

adjective

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

25 Moby Thesaurus words for "distributive": attenuative, diffractional, diffractive, diffusive, dispersive, disseminative, dissipative, distributional, equal, even stephen, fifty-fifty, half, half-and-half, halvers, particular, per capita, per head, pro rata, proportional, proportionate, prorated, respective, scattering, several, spreading