restrictive

From Middle French restrictif.

Morphologically restrict +‎ -ive.

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈstɹɪktɪv/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪktɪv

restrictive (comparative more restrictive, superlative most restrictive)

1. Confining, limiting, containing within defined bounds.
   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:

     The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome.

   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[1], page 7:

     The pinnacle of the effort to fix restrictive meanings to a set of terminology can be found in two papers in American Speech by Feinsilver (1979, 1980).

   • 2026 March 18, Philip Haigh, “Tickets please: 2p per scan to offset fraudulent refunds?”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 48:

     RDG explains: "From April 1 2026, the following tickets, Anytime, Off-Peak, Day Travelcards and most Ranger and Rover tickets, will no longer be refundable on the day they become valid for travel." It calls the £40m it thinks it loses "refund abuse", which it explains as "refunds on tickets that have been used but not scanned or endorsed, where a customer falsely states that they did not travel". I'm sure such abuse takes place (and that it's done by passengers). But RDG is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut and punishing many millions of honest passengers by making tickets more restrictive.

2. (Of clothing) limiting free and easy bodily movement.
   • 1980 December 6, Cindy Rizzo, Nancy Toder, “Jewish, Lesbian, Feminist, Psychologist, Author—All of the above and more”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 20, page 8:

     Some of them [teenagers] who will become lesbians clearly are being hit with the same kind of garbage which we got hit with in the fifties. There's been a real resurgence of that in terms of values and double standards and music. The clothes again — we're back to high heels and restrictive little femmy outfits.

restrictive (plural restrictives)

1. (grammar) A clause that narrows the meaning of a noun or noun phrase.
   • 2013, Noel Burton-Roberts, Analysing Sentences, page 210:

     […] a couple of further differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses: (1) in contrast with restrictives, the wh-phrase in non-restrictives cannot be ellipted; […]

restrictive

1. feminine singular of restrictif