-ive

From Middle English -yf, from Anglo-Norman -if from Latin -īvus. Until the fourteenth century, all Middle English loanwords from Anglo-Norman ended in -if (compare actif, natif, sensitif, pensif etc.). Under the influence of literary Neo-Latin, both languages introduced the form -ive. Those forms that have not been replaced were subsequently changed to end in -y (compare hasty, from hastif, jolly, from jolif etc.).

Like the Latin suffix -iō (genitive -iōnis), the Latin suffix -ivus is appended to the perfect passive participle to form an adjective of action.

• IPA^(key): /ɪv/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

-ive

1. An adjective suffix signifying relating or belonging to, of the nature of, tending to, or serving to; as: affirmative, active, conclusive, corrective, diminutive.

• “-ive”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Miller, D. Gary (2006), Latin Suffixal Derivatives in English: and their Indo-European Ancestry, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 204

• VEI, VIE, vie

• IPA^(key): /iv/

-ive f

1. female equivalent of -if

-īve

1. vocative masculine singular of -īvus

-ive

1. alternative form of -yf