additive


- showing or relating to addition
- to be added
Origin of additive
Late Latin additivus: see add a substance added to another in small quantities to produce a desired effect, as a preservative added to food or an antiknock added to gasoline
additive

noun
A substance added in small amounts to something else to improve, strengthen, or otherwise alter it.
adjective
- Marked by, produced by, or involving addition.
- Of or being any of certain primary colors of wavelengths that may be mixed with one another to produce other colors. color
Related Forms:
- ad′di·tive·ly
adverb
- ad′di·tiv′i·ty
noun
additive

Adjective
(comparative more additive, superlative most additive)
- (mathematics) Pertaining to addition; that can be, or has been, added.
- (mathematics, of a function, etc.) Distributive over addition.
- Matrix multiplication is additive in that .
- (algebra) Having addition as an operator.
- It is natural to look at a finite cyclic group as an additive group.
- (chemistry) Pertaining to chemical addition.
- (genetics) Describing genes (the interaction etc. of such genes) which govern the same trait and whose effects work together on the phenotype.
Antonyms
Noun
(plural additives)
Origin
From Late Latin additivus, from the participial stem of Latin addere (“to add”).
