RESTRICTIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does restrictive mean? 

• RESTRICTIVE (adjective)
  The adjective RESTRICTIVE has 2 senses:

1. serving to restrict

2. (of tariff) protective of national interests by restricting imports

  Familiarity information: RESTRICTIVE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RESTRICTIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Serving to restrict

Context example:

teenagers eager to escape restrictive home environments

Similar:

confining; constraining; constrictive; limiting; restricting (restricting the scope or freedom of action)

inhibitory; repressing; repressive (restrictive of action)

limiting (strictly limiting the reference of a modified word or phrase)

regulative; regulatory (restricting according to rules or principles)

sumptuary (regulating or controlling expenditure or personal behavior)

suppressive (tending to suppress)

Antonym:

unrestrictive (not tending to restrict)

Derivation:

restrict (place limits on (extent or amount or access))

restrict (place restrictions on)

restrictiveness (a lack of permissiveness or indulgence and a tendency to confine behavior within certain specified limits)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(of tariff) protective of national interests by restricting imports

Similar:

protective (intended or adapted to afford protection of some kind)

Derivation:

restrict (place under restrictions; limit access to by law)

 Context examples 

Cardiomyopathies may be classified as either primary or secondary, on the basis of etiology, or on the pathophysiology of the lesion: hypertrophic, dilated, or restrictive.

(Cardiomyopathy, NCI Thesaurus)

She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The assembly of nucleosomes, as well as compaction of nucleosomal arrays into higher-order chromatin structures, creates a highly restrictive environment for nuclear processes that require access to DNA.

(hSWI-SNF Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

The affected areas of skin can be restrictive and disfiguring.

(Localized Scleroderma, NCI Thesaurus)

Causes include hypertrophic and restrictive cardiomyopathies, coronary artery disease, chronic high blood pressure, aortic stenosis, and aging.

(Diastolic Dysfunction, NCI Thesaurus)

Uranus may make you feel ready to bolt from a job you’ve been unhappy with or a professional situation that has become restrictive or frustrating.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

It's on record, your position on interstate commerce regulation, on regulation of the railway trust and Standard Oil, on the conservation of the forests, on a thousand and one restrictive measures that are nothing else than socialistic.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)