Formative1. (a.) Giving form; having the power of giving form; plastic; as, the formative arts.
2. (a.) Serving to form; derivative; not radical; as, a termination merely formative.
3. (a.) Capable of growth and development; germinal; as, living or formative matter.
4. (n.) That which serves merely to give form, and is no part of the radical, as the prefix or the termination of a word.
5. (n.) A word formed in accordance with some rule or usage, as from a root.
Thesaurus Entries
IC analysis, abecedarian, aboriginal, accidence, adaptable, affix, affixation, allomorph, antenatal, autochthonous, beginning, behind the scenes, bendable, bending, bound morpheme, budding, causal, causative, compliant, component, conjugation, constituent, constitutive, constructive, creative, cutting, decisive, declension, demiurgic, derivation, determinative, difference of form, ductile, effectual, elastic, elemental, elementary, embryonic, enclitic, etiological, extensible, extensile, fabricable, facile, fetal, fictile, flexible, flexile, flexuous, formable, formal, formational, foundational, free form, fundamental, generative, gestatory, giving, immediate constituent analysis, impressible, impressionable, in embryo, in its infancy, in the bud, inaugural, inceptive, inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incunabular, infant, infantile, infix, infixation, inflection, initial, initiative, initiatory, institutive, integral, integrant, introductory, inventive, like putty, limber, lissome, lithe, lithesome, malleable, moldable, morph, morpheme, morphemic analysis, morphemics, morphology, morphophonemics, morphotic, nascent, natal, occasional, original, originative, paradigm, parturient, pivotal, plastic, pliable, pliant, postnatal, prefix, prefixation, pregnant, prenatal, primal, primary, prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, proclitic, procreative, productive, radical, receptive, responsive, root, rudimental, rudimentary, sensitive, sequacious, shapable, springy, stem, submissive, suffix, suffixation, supple, susceptible, theme, tractable, tractile, ur, whippy, willowy, word-formation, yielding