Meaning & use
Isolative
Last updated
Tending to isolate or separate; in linguistics, describing a language that expresses grammatical relationships mainly through word order rather than inflection.
See it in a sentence
His isolative behavior worried his friends, who rarely saw him outside of work.
Mandarin Chinese is often described as an isolative language because it relies heavily on word order rather than word endings.
A note on using this word
In linguistics, "isolative" languages (also called "analytic" languages) contrast with "inflectional" languages like Latin or Russian.
Words with a similar meaning
isolatingseparating
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
integrativeinclusive
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