Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Bursting forth; of the nature of or like an eruption.
  • In pathology, attended with a breaking out or eruption; accompanied with an eruption or rash: as, an eruptive fever.
  • In geology, produced by eruption: as, eruptive rocks, such as the igneous or volcanic.
  • noun In geology, a rock or mineral produced by eruption.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Geol.) An eruptive rock.
  • adjective Breaking out or bursting forth.
  • adjective (Med.) Attended with eruption or efflorescence, or producing it.
  • adjective (Geol.) Produced by eruption.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective That erupts
  • adjective That is accompanied by eruptions
  • adjective Produced by eruption
  • noun An eruptive rock

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective actively spewing out lava
  • adjective producing or characterized by eruptions
  • adjective produced by the action of fire or intense heat

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Long-term eruptive activity at a submarine arc volcano.

    Lamb on the Northeast Atlantic « Climate Audit 2006

  • The principles of explanation applied to the corona may be briefly described as eruptive and electrical.

    A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition 1874

  • On Triton, "Voyager saw dark material rising up as much as 12 km above the surface, indicating some kind of eruptive activity," Elliot said.

    Sound Politics: Note to self 2007

  • We are almost back in the ranks of the "eruptive" poets, but not quite.

    Re-collecting Spontaneous Overflows 1998

  • The thing that is essential is the proper amount, and the right kind of eruptive, because it is from the eruptives that the right conditions exist for obtaining this ore.

    Cobalt Mineral Conditions 1906

  • Fatality has cast us into a well of burning and boiling lava, of rocks on fire, of boiling water, in a word, filled with every kind of eruptive matter?

    Voyage au centre de la terre. English Jules Verne 1866

  • But Sarkozy, whose popularity has eroded sharply since his election in May 2007, has warned of France's "eruptive" nature and is careful to remind his fellow citizens constantly that the main culprits of the economic meltdown are Wall Street, greedy bosses and tax havens -- not him.

    The Nation: Top Stories 2009

  • At first glance, this looks like the rather cliched version of spontaneous composition once associated with the "eruptive" school of English Romanticism, e.g., with Byron's comparison of his writing fits to a live volcano or his idealization of perfect expression, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, as something like a verbal lightning bolt: "Could I embody and unbosom now/That which is most within me ... into one word,/And that word were Lightning, I would speak" (3. 905-11).

    Re-collecting Spontaneous Overflows 1998

  • Gomez opened with two Reynolds works for solo guitar that both contrasted with and complemented each other: the assertive "imAge/guitar" (full of bold, eruptive gestures) and the more delicate "imagE/guitar" (a ravishing piece awash in shadows and evanescent mysteries).

    Roger Reynolds: Classical music outside the box 2011

  • With all his terrarium's a stage, our monologue-happy chameleon is doing vocal warm-ups, yet Depp's eruptive effects are also a pitch-perfect impression of Jack Lemmon's sinus-clearing honking - as the finicky Felix - in Neil Simon's sublime "The Odd Couple."

    Land of allusion: 'Rango' is a double-barreled valentine to Hollywood 2011

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