incessive

I1N1C3E1S1S1I1V4E1
/ɪnˈsɛs.ɪv/

adjective

Intense and active.

Scrabble 14

Meanings

adjectiveincessive (comparative more incessive, superlative most incessive)

comparative more incessive · superlative most incessive

  1. Intense and active.

    The primordial wants have been satisfied only by incessive toil, at least for most people.

    1930, Margaret Sanger, The Birth Control Review - Volumes 14-15, page 233
    2 more examples

    In both species it is impossible for the eye to follow the incessive movements of the feet, and to compare them with those of other quadrupeds, but from their chrono-photographic images it is easy to see that, taking the order of the movements of the limbs as a standard, the lizards are trotting animals.

    1894, George Chapman Caldwell, The American Chemist, page 502

    It is true, the atmospheric regions, at first subnuvolar, soon became enubilated; and old Sol did not radiate his sudorific caloric so potently as on the hesternal day, but the roads had, in some places, become lutulent and somewhat clarty; presenting a great difficiliation to my incessive velocity, on account of the viscosity of the surface.

    2008, Thomas Stone, Frontier Experience, →ISBN, page 26

    Synonyms: maximal, passing, utmost, extreme, ferocious, exquisite, intense, pluperfect

  2. Fierce; cruel and aggressive.

    War, the institution, the incessive monster which devours whole peoples, the world has learned to hate.

    1929, Legislative Documents - Volume 18, Issues 46-57, page 13
    3 more examples

    What strange lessons of preistly domination do we read in the institutions of Knights Templar, the preaching of Crusades against the Infidel, and those bitter, incessive dissensions between kings and popes!

    1860, John Tomlinson, Rambles twenty miles round Doncaster, page 65

    Because of its incessive conflicts with warlords and the Japanese, the Nationalist Party had to adopt a Soviet-type model for its political bureacratic structure.

    1990, United States Congress House. Committee on Foreign Affairs: Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Congressional Observer Delegation to Taiwan, The upcoming elections in Taiwan

    The image of the Nigerian police became worse during the military era as the force became a ready tool of repression for incessive repressive military regimes.

    2004, Okon Edet Uya, Education for sustainable democracy: the Nigerian experience

    Synonyms: barbarous, inhuman, furious, savage, barbarous, bowelless, brutal, compassionless

  3. Continual or successive; unceasing.

    He is a good man, but his incessive worrying is a bit annoying.

    2013, Kathleen Clare, The Anthology Of Porthos, →ISBN, page 190
    4 more examples

    Some Northern Murdochs may be of the same stock of the Murthacs of Rothes, heirs of the Pollocks, and progenitors through incessive heiresses of the Watsons and Leslies of Rothes.

    1904, John Bulloch, John Alexander Henderson, Scottish Notes and Queries, page 124

    We passed the Great Bras d'Or on the ice at the imminent risk of our lives, so rotten had the ice become owing to the effect of five or six days incessive thaw.

    1978, George Geddie Patterson, W. James MacDonald, Patterson's History of Victoria County, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, →ISBN

    The Nadars diversified their professional activities and made their imprint on every profession through an incessive process of modernisation.

    1994, A. Balakrishnan Nair, The Government and Politics of Kerala

    So, why I started with my incessive nervous immediate questioning of, “Oh my God, did you lose your job?

    2013, Debra J. Blood, My Husband Has Died, But That’s Not The Funny Part, →ISBN

    Synonyms: constant, incessant, unending, amaranthine, solid, ceaseless, constant, continual

  4. Tending to incite or inflame; incensive.

    "Thou hast asked me who I am," He began in the same low incessive accents.

    1913, Ida Alexa Ross Wylie, The Daughter of Brahma, page 325
    3 more examples

    There is an incessive bravery about the book, that tells you at once that the writer is in the deepest sympathy with the great soul whem he portrays, and the cause for which the martyred one bled.

    1866, The Freed-man - Volume 2, page 249

    In a dispatch dated 4th March 1911, Baron Guillaume mentions that in Germany, along the French frontier, an incessive propaganda is employed with the object of furthering the desertions from the German army to the French Foreign Legion.

    1915, War-chronicle - Volume 2, page 39

    He also shows him the results obtained by the artillery of the army corps (or by the heavy artillery of the army) in its distinctive fire, by means of incessive photographs of the positions fired on.

    1917, United States Army war college, Instructions on the Operation of the Information Service and of the Terrestrial Observation Service of Artillery

    Synonyms: incendious, inflammatory

  5. Insightful; deep and succinct; incisive.

    The present volume contains two of his most incessive and illuminating discourses on important aspects of Ayurveda.

    1979, C.. Pandeya, N. P. Jain, Glory of India - Volume 3, page 17
    3 more examples

    We suppose cold, clear, incessive, and formal reasoning; the expression of the greatest possible amount of truth in the simplest and fewish possible words, and the avoidance of anything in the shape of high-flown or flowery language.

    1903, The Tablet - Volume 102, page 622

    His preaching is characterized by spiritual insight, incessive utterance, luminous presentation of truth, and over it all there is the glow of a refined imagination which charms while it impresses.

    1912, The Record of Sigma Alpha Epsilon - Volume 32, page 95

    Even long after he had achieved fame throughout the English-speaking world, Dennis wrote, he maintained a "keen interest in public affairs and his comments on men and measures were as admirably conceived and as incessive as ever."

    1969, Patricia Lillian Walker, Eugene Field's Years as a Chicago Journalist (1883-1895), page 71

    Synonyms: observant, perceptive, to the point

  6. Critical and accurate; incisive.

    We should offer incessive criticism of the conditions under which the work is done and at the same time show our ...

    1994, O. M. Rao, Focus on North East Indian Christianity, →ISBN, page 85
    2 more examples

    Here he engaged in a controversy with Voltaire, in which he was lashed by the incessive wit and satire of his own countrymen, and obliged to retire to France, where he died at Basel in 1759.

    1881, Calcutta Review, volume 73, page 76

    My dear Angelina completed the predicate for me with a voluminous appendix, annotated through the agency of her incessive and florid vocabulary.

    1879, The Australian Journal: A Weekly Record of Literature, Science, and Art
  7. biologyIntruding inward.

    On the right cheek, just below the incessive tearing, and only a mild redness.

    1943 January, H.D. Rosenbaum, “Varicella and the Cornea*: A Case Report”, in American Journal of Ophthalmology, volume 26, number 1
    1 more example

    In the new genus Bathyopsurus, the incessive part and the lacinia (on the left mandible) are well developed.

    1951, Hans Pettersson, Nils Gunnar Jerlov, Börje Kullenberg, Reports of the Swedish Deep-Sea Expedition, 1947-1948, page 206
  8. Included.

    ...that which lies very much within the frame, that which is incessant, or certainly 'incessive' (it lies within the frame), but which exceeds our perception not because invisible (out of frame) but in spite of being visible (in the frame).

    2012, William Brown, “Monstrous cinema”, in New Review of Film and Television Studies, volume 10, number 4
    1 more example

    The opening sentence is very risky. " I found myself standing on my feet " is apt to destroy all proper solemnity of feeling by suggesting that it would, on the whole, have been more remarkable if the gentleman had found himself standing on his head. To " stand upon one's feet " is indeed excellent English; but in excellent English it always has (so far as we remember) an incessive sense — " to rise upon the feet and stand " — which is wanting here.

    1889 -, The Academy - Volume 35, page 53
  9. grammarSynonym of inessive.

    Indeed, in terms of semantic nuances, Igbo cases are more in line with the Fino-Ugric cases which express spatio-temporal relations thus: Interior: Incessive; talose; 'in the house'

    2016, E. Nolue Emenanjo, A Grammar of Contemporary Igbo: Constituents, Features and Processes, →ISBN
    2 more examples

    The Hungarian 'incessive' -ban/-ben (e.g., ha'z-ban “in the house”, ke'z-ben “in the hand”) arose from the postposition benn; today it appears in a non-case form only in adverbial usage with possessive suffixes (e.g., bennem “in me”, benned “in you”).

    1990, Henning Andersen, E.F.K. Koerner, Historical Linguistics 1987, →ISBN

    In this too the loc. marker is identical with Acc. marker. Besides, various spatial relations of the loc. case, such as surfacessive (on, upon, etc.) incessive (in, inside of, within), possessive (with-in the possession ol), etc., are expressed with various sets of . - postpositions in different speeches under consideration (For their details see respective volumes of the 'Studies in T.H.L.' 1988-92).

    1994, D. D. Sharma, Studies in Tibeto-Himalayan languages - Volume 4, →ISBN, page 110

    Synonyms: inessive

  10. grammarDurative.

    In Thao, however, triplication does not express plurality but rather some sort of aspectual modification (continuative or incessive).

    2005, Bernhard Hurch, Studies on Reduplication, →ISBN, page 591
    2 more examples

    The presence of the feature progression means that the activity denoted by the primary verb is understood as a succession of events indicated by this verb either directed towards a goal (pre-terminative) or directed from a point with its goal unspecified (post" inceptive). In this sense the pre-terminative succession can be confused with the incessive process (the explicator ) of a state of an event denoted by a verb.

    1967, A Reference Grammar of Hindi

    As a further example of unclear cases, the so-called incessive – a fast recurrence of some typical properties - is included under the iterative by Rathmann (2005), but subsumed under the habitual by Wilbur (1987).

    2017, Josep Quer, SignGram Blueprint: A Guide to Sign Language Grammar Writing, →ISBN

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectiveTending to incite or inflame; incensive.

adjectiveInsightful; deep and succinct; incisive.

adjectiveSynonym of inessive.

Similar

Origin

  1. Latinincesso
  2. Latinincessus
  3. Englishincessive

From Latin incessus + -ive, from Latin incesso + -ive.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with incessive

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

incessive. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/incessive

MLA

“incessive.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/incessive. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “incessive,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/incessive.

Source: incessive on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.