a. | 1. | (Law) Consisting in, or acquired by, immemorial or long-continued use and enjoyment; |
2. | Of or pertaining to the doctrine that acceptable grammatical rules should be prescribed by authority, rather than be determined by common usage. |
Adj. | 1. | prescriptive - giving directives or rules; "prescriptive grammar is concerned with norms of or rules for correct usage" Synonyms: normative Antonyms: descriptive - describing the structure of a language; "descriptive linguistics simply describes language" |
2. | prescriptive - based on or prescribing a norm or standard; "normative grammar" Synonyms: normative |