restorative

comparative more restorative · superlative most restorative

1. Serving to restore.

   After a long day working in the fields Clarence took comfort in a restorative pint of beer.

   3 more examples

   Destroys life's enemy, / Hunger, with sweet restorative delight.

   1671, John Milton, “The Second Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC

   Whether you need to recover from a stressful day, a strenuous workout or even an injury or surgery, restorative yoga may be just the thing for you.

   2017 February 17, Dana Santas, “Recovering from surgery or stress? Yoga can help”, in CNN

   Again, voice change is not easy and vulnerability plays a big part, but if choral teachers and adolescent singers approach it with the right mindframe, the experience can be empowering, enlightening, and restorative for all involved.

   2019, Bridget Sweet, Thinking Outside the Voice Box, page 71

   Synonyms: roborant, roborative, roborating

plural restoratives

1. Something with restoring properties.

   For Louis XIV's advancing age, a drink consisting of sugar, distilled spirits, and orange water was recommended as a restorative of vigor.

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 211

   1 more example

   Marianne’s joy was almost a degree beyond happiness, so great was the perturbation of her spirits and her impatience to be gone. Her unwillingness to quit her mother was her only restorative to calmness; and at the moment of parting her grief on that score was excessive.

   1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 25

2. euphemisticAn alcoholic drink, especially with tonic.

   1 more example

   “Well, let's hope you're right, darling. In the meantime,” said Kipper, “if I don't get that whisky-and-soda soon, I shall disintegrate. Would you mind if I went in search of it, Mrs Travers?” “It's the very thing I was about to suggest myself. Dash along and drink your fill, my unhappy young stag at eve.” “I'm feeling rather like a restorative, too,” said Bobbie. “Me also,” I said, swept along on the tide of the popular movement. “Though I would advise,” I said, when we were outside, “making it port. More authority.”

   1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIV, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC