a. and sb. [a. F. attributif, -ive (Cotgr.), f. L. attribūt- (see ATTRIBUTE a.) + -IVE, as if ad. L. *attribūtīvus.]
A. adj.
† 1. Characterized by attributing. Obs.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., II. ii. 58 (Qo.). The will dotes that is attributive [Folio, inclineable] To what infectiously it selfe affects, Without some image of th’ affected merit.
2. Logic. That assigns an attribute to a subject.
1849. Abp. Thomson, Laws of Th. (1860), § 77. 134. Auributive [judgment] where an indefinite (i.e. undistributed) predicate is assigned to the subject.
1870. Bowen, Logic, v. 110. In Attributive Judgments the Predicate is actually thought only connotatively, as a Mark or attribute of the Subject, and not denotatively, as the name of a class of things.
3. Gram. That expresses an attribute.
c. 1840. Douglas, Eng. Gram. (1876), 16. Attributive adjectives are those which express the quality of an object, as, a kind friend.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., x. 207. Nearly all attributive words were inflected.
1881. Mason, Eng. Gram., 145. When to a noun or pronoun we attach an adjective, or what is equivalent to an adjective … this adjective or its equivalent stands in the Attributive Relation to the noun or pronoun, and is said to be an Attributive Adjunct to it.
4. So-assigned, so-ascribed (by those who essay to assign the authorship of a painting or work of art). Cf. ascriptive, putative, and ATTRIBUTION 4.
1866. Howells, Venet. Life, xiv. 206. An attributive Veronese.
B. sb. An attributive word, one that denotes an attribute. Applied by Harris and others to adjectives, verbs and adverbs; by most modern grammarians only to adjectives and their equivalents.
1750. Harris, Hermes, I. vi. (1786), 87. Attributives are all those principal Words, that denote Attributes, considered as Attributes. Ibid., 94. All Attributives are either Verbs, Participles, or Adjectives.
1858. Marsh, Eng. Lang., ix. 193. A radical, which in its simplest form and use, serves only as an attributive, in other words as an adjective, may be made to denote the quality which it ascribes, or an act by which that quality is manifested or imparted, and thus become a noun or a verb.
1881. Mason, Eng. Gram., 18. Both Verbs and Adjectives express notions of the actions and attributes of things. Verbs assert the connection of the thing and its action or attribute; Adjectives assume this connection. To borrow a word from Mechanics, the Verb is a Dynamic Attributive, the Adjective is a Static Attributive.
