Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Dividing or serving to divide something into parts; marked by division.
- adjective Grammar Indicating a part as distinct from a whole, as some of the coffee in the sentence She drank some of the coffee.
- noun A partitive word, such as many or less.
- noun A partitive construction or case.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In grammar, denoting a part; defining a part by expression of the whole to which it belongs; indicating a part as related to a whole: as, the head of a man; a half of it; or,in French, du pain, ‘some bread,’ or ‘of the bread.’
- noun In grammar, a word expressing partition; a distributive.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Gram.) Denoting a part.
- noun (Gram.) A word or phrase expressing partition, or denoting a part.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective that
divides something intoparts - adjective grammar indicating a part rather than the
whole of something; e.g.some - noun grammar a partitive word,
phrase orcase
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective indicating or characterized by or serving to create partition or division into parts
- adjective (Romance languages) relating to or denoting a part of a whole or a quantity that is less than the whole
- noun word (such a `some' or `less') that is used to indicate a part as distinct from a whole
- adjective serving to separate or divide into parts
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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If she made such a point of other people’s knowing that we ‘had money’ (for she knew nothing of what Saint-Loup used to call partitive articles, and said simply ‘have money,’ ‘fetch water’), of their realising that we were rich, it was not because riches with nothing else besides, riches without virtue, were in her eyes the supreme good in life; but virtue without riches was not her ideal either.
The Guermantes Way 2003
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To claim Jesus is referring to the first part of the creation process itself (a kind of partitive use of the genitive) introduces unnecessary confusion.
Reasons To Believe - 2010
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It is actually a great help, because most Etruscan grammars both those in books and online materials simply do not deal with cases like the partitive, commitative or directive, because "they are not universally accepted among scholars".
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He is simply using a partitive construction, indicating which part of the bill of rights he is discussing.
The Volokh Conspiracy » A Volokh Conspiracy Drinking Game 2009
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The first becomes the source of the Indo-European ablative *-ód and Uralic partitive *-ta.
Archive 2009-10-01 2009
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The first becomes the source of the Indo-European ablative *-ód and Uralic partitive *-ta.
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Adding to this, we should realize that the Indo-European accusative *-m is technically only the definite accusative case form since indefinite objects are often given other case forms such as genitive, ablative, partitive, etc. in many languages around the world.
Archive 2008-06-01 2008
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In Finnish, for example, definite objects are marked with the accusative while indefinite objects are declined in the partitive case.
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Since PIE lacks a partitive case, it seems to me that the ablative or genitive would be the next best thing.
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He was saying to a friend that, when he wanted to find an expert in a particular thing, all he found was/were idiots, and he goes on: 'I realize that if all is used with a plural noun with or without a partitive genitive it takes a plural verb, i.e.
Archive 2008-03-01 DC 2008
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