Meanings
- Serving to orient or orientate.
An activities coordinator named Suzy Ghosh came by with orientative tidings and registration forms for the afternoon’s outings in Newport, Rhode Island.
2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections1 more example
In our view, this approach to care ethics can be operationalized through an innovative account of two basic orientative principles and their systemic interrelation: autonomy, on the one hand, and the principle of vulnerability, on the other.
2021 June 16, Pirni A., Balistreri M., Capasso M., Umbrello S., Merenda F., “Robot Care Ethics Between Autonomy and Vulnerability: Coupling Principles and Practices in Autonomous Systems for Care.”, in Frontiers in robotics and AI, volume 8, →DOI, 654298 - grammarTransmitting the sense of orientation towards an entity.
The orientative case indicates that an entity or event is oriented towards or around the referent.
2011 July 15, Dibella Wdzenczny, “The case for fewer cases in pre-chukotko-kamchatkan: Grammaticalization and semantics in internal reconstruction”, in Digital Commons @ EMU, retrieved 28 Feb 2022, Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations: 333
Origin
From orientate + -ive or orient + -ative.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
orientative. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orientative
“orientative.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orientative. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “orientative,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/orientative.
Source: orientative on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.