formative

Helping to shape how someone or something develops, especially at an early stage.

• Those were my formative years.
• Her first job was a formative experience.
• He spent a formative period studying abroad.

Similar words: influential, shaping

Common phrases: formative years, formative experience, formative period

Able to give something its shape or structure.

• Pressure acts as a formative force.
• The artist explored the formative power of heat.
• These forces played a formative role in shaping the landscape.

Similar words: shaping

Common phrases: formative force, formative power

Able to produce new parts of a living body.

• Formative cells produce new tissue.
• The injury damaged the formative layer.
• Researchers examined the bone’s formative tissue under a microscope.

Similar words: creant, poietic

Common phrases: formative tissue, formative cells

Used to make words or change their grammatical forms.

• The ending has a formative function.
• Students identified the formative suffix in each word.
• This formative element marks the plural.

Similar words: creant, poietic

Common phrases: formative suffix, formative affix, formative element

Something that helps create the shape or structure of another thing.

• Tradition served as a formative of the community.
• The theory treats pressure as a formative of structure.
• Several formatives contributed to the final shape.

Similar words: shaping factor

Common phrases: a formative, powerful formative

A small part of a word that helps make a word or show its grammatical form.

• The suffix is a plural formative.
• This word contains two formatives.
• A bound formative cannot stand alone as a word.

Similar words: morpheme

Common phrases: plural formative, grammatical formative, bound formative