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restrictive
adjective
- restricting or tending to restrict; limiting: restrictive regulations
- Gram. designating a modifier, as a word, phrase, or subordinate clause, that limits the reference of the word or phrase it modifies and thus is essential to the meaning of a sentence: it is not set off by punctuation: “who laughed” in “the person who laughed is my friend” is a restrictive relative clause
Related Forms:
- restrictively adverb
- restrictiveness noun
See restrictive in American Heritage Dictionary 4
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