Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Related; corresponding.
  • adjective Grammar Indicating a reciprocal or complementary relationship.
  • noun Either of two correlative entities; a correlate.
  • noun Grammar A correlative word or expression.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Being in correlation; reciprocally related or connected; interdependent; mutually implied.
  • In grammar, having a mutual relation; answering to or complementing one another.
  • noun Either of two terms or things which are reciprocally related; a correlate. Careful writers distinguish the terms as correlatives, the things as correlates. In the medieval Latin, which has greatly influenced English terminology, this distinction is constantly maintained.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who, or that which, stands in a reciprocal relation, or is correlated, to some other person or thing.
  • noun (Gram.) The antecedent of a pronoun.
  • adjective Having or indicating a reciprocal relation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective mutually related; corresponding
  • noun Either of two correlative things.
  • noun grammar A pro-form; a non-personal pronominal, proadjectival, or proadverbal form, in Esperanto regularly formed, indicating 'which?', 'that', 'some', 'none', and 'every', as applied to people, things, type, place, manner, reason, time, or quantity, as: kiu ‘who’ (which person?), iu ‘someone’ (some person), tie ‘there’ (that place), ĉie ‘everywhere’ (all places), etc.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective mutually related
  • adjective expressing a reciprocal or complementary relation
  • noun either of two or more related or complementary variables

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Mystery signifies the hidden truth, veiled under this symbol, and now revealed; its correlative is revelation.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • These so called correlative constitutional rights include the right to a maximally safeguarded electoral system that provides the greatest protection against even the opportunity for tampering and the right to know that one's vote was fairly counted as cast.

    Overview: Why New York's Legislature's Plan to Computerize Our Electoral System Is Unconstitutional 2008

  • A head will be more accurately defined as the correlative of that which is

    Categories 2002

  • A head will be more accurately defined as the correlative of that which is

    Categories 2002

  • A head will be more accurately defined as the correlative of that which is 'headed', than as that of an animal, for the animal does not have a head qua animal, since many animals have no head.

    Categoriae. English 384 BC-322 BC Aristotle

  • Similarly, if the attribute 'winged' be withdrawn from 'the bird', 'the wing' will no longer be relative; for if the so-called correlative is not winged, it follows that 'the wing' has no correlative.

    Categoriae. English 384 BC-322 BC Aristotle

  • The mutually related peculiarities may be termed correlative, and we therefore speak, in such cases, of correlative variability.

    Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation Hugo de Vries 1891

  • And to endeavour to conceive a reality which no one knows, is to assert a relative term without its correlative, which is absurd; it is to posit an ideal which is opposed to nothing actual.

    Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher Henry Jones 1887

  • : -- Assuredly I escape; for if truth and knowledge are terms correlative and interdependent, as I maintain they are, then wherever knowledge is conceivable truth is conceivable, wherever knowledge is possible truth is possible, wherever knowledge is actual truth is actual.

    Meaning of Truth William James 1876

  • For the word 'slave' is what logicians call the correlative of this word

    Expositions of Holy Scripture St. Luke Alexander Maclaren 1868

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