Definitions

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

  • adjective Acting or serving as an illustration.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Tending to illustrate.
  • Tending to make glorious or illustrious; honorific.

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

  • adjective Tending or designed to illustrate, exemplify, or elucidate.
  • adjective obsolete Making illustrious.

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

  • adjective Demonstrative, exemplative, showing an example or demonstrating.

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

  • adjective serving to demonstrate
  • adjective clarifying by use of examples

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Again, he lists these as all, what he calls illustrative options and doesn't endorse any of them.

    CNN Transcript Dec 4, 2006 2006

  • MCINTYRE: In the memo, Rumsfeld ruminated about but stopped short of recommending some radical ideas which he called illustrative options, such as having U.S. troops only patrol where they are welcome and withholding aid from violent areas of Iraq.

    CNN Transcript Dec 4, 2006 2006

  • MCINTYRE: In the memo, Rumsfeld ruminated about, but stopped short of recommending, some radical ideas, which he called illustrative options, such as having U.S. troops only patrol where they are welcome and withholding aid from violent areas of Iraq, the kind of tough-love approach advocated by some of Rumsfeld's political adversaries.

    CNN Transcript Dec 4, 2006 2006

  • MCINTYRE: In the memo, Rumsfeld ruminated about, but stopped short of recommending some radical ideas, which he called illustrative options, such as having U.S. troops only patrol where they are welcome and withholding aid from violent areas of Iraq, the kind of tough-love approach advocated by some of Rumsfeld's political adversaries.

    CNN Transcript Dec 4, 2006 2006

  • The next stop was Lake City, -- a name illustrative of Californian megalomania; for the lake, long since gone dry, was merely an artificial reservoir to supply a neighboring mine, and the city was a collection of half a dozen buildings including a store and a hotel.

    Forty-one Thieves A Tale of California Angelo Hall

  • The works mentioned contain illustrative examples of many forms of sabotage; slowing up work, while keeping on the job; putting preparations in steam boilers to prevent their efficient operation; sand and emery dust in machinery to make it slow down or cease running.

    A Pernicious Propaganda 1919

  • Caesar are largely made up of what one might term illustrative fictions rather than actual facts.

    Vanishing Roads and Other Essays Richard Le Gallienne 1906

  • At all events, it does his fame no great harm, unlike another calumny, which, as it does not seem "illustrative" -- that is, not in keeping with his general character -- we are at liberty to reject.

    Vanishing Roads and Other Essays Richard Le Gallienne 1906

  • "It would seem the Lib Dems 'support for law and order is purely' illustrative '- just as it was when they used a fake nurse to promote their claims of support for the NHS."

    Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news 2010

  • "It would seem the Lib Dems 'support for law and order is purely' illustrative '- just as it was when they used a fake nurse to promote their claims of support for the NHS."

    Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010

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