EXPLETIVE
\ɛksplˈiːtɪv], \ɛksplˈiːtɪv], \ɛ_k_s_p_l_ˈiː_t_ɪ_v]\
Definitions of EXPLETIVE
- 2010 - New Age Dictionary Database
- 1913 - Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
- 1919 - The Winston Simplified Dictionary
- 1899 - The american dictionary of the english language.
- 1894 - The Clarendon dictionary
- 1919 - The Concise Standard Dictionary of the English Language
- 1914 - Nuttall's Standard dictionary of the English language
- 1874 - Etymological and pronouncing dictionary of the English language
- 1871 - The Cabinet Dictionary of the English Language
- 1790 - A Complete Dictionary of the English Language
Sort: Oldest first
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Filling up; hence, added merely for the purpose of filling up; superfluous.
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A word, letter, or syllable not necessary to the sense, but inserted to fill a vacancy; an oath.
By Oddity Software
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Filling up; hence, added merely for the purpose of filling up; superfluous.
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A word, letter, or syllable not necessary to the sense, but inserted to fill a vacancy; an oath.
By Noah Webster.
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A word not necessary for the sense, inserted in a sentence for ornament or to fill up a verse; hence, an oath.
By William Dodge Lewis, Edgar Arthur Singer
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Filling up: added to fill a vacancy: superfiuous. "There is little temptation to load with expletive epithets."-Johnson.
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A word or syllable inserted to fill a vacancy. "What are called expletives in rhetorical treatises are grammatically allied to the interjections, though widely differenced from them by the want of meaning, which the interjection is never without. I can hardly agree with Webster in his definition of the expletive, and still less in the statement with which he concludes it. 'The expletive,' says Webster, 'is a word or syllable not necessary to the sense, but inserted to fill a vacancy or for ornament; the Greek language abounds with expletives.' So far as the word answers no other purpose than 'to fill a vacancy,' it is properly expletive: but if it be appropriate and graceful enough to deserve the name of an 'ornament,' it is not superfluous, and therefore is not an expletive."-G. P. Marsh.
By Daniel Lyons
By William Hand Browne, Samuel Stehman Haldeman
By James Champlin Fernald
By Nuttall, P.Austin.
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Filling up or out; added for supply or ornament; not necessary to the sense.
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A word or syllable inserted for ornament; something only used to take up room; colloquially, a coarse or profane word.
By Stormonth, James, Phelp, P. H.
