commissive
- adjective
- /kəˈmɪsɪv/
- Formal
- The court distinguished between commissive and omissive acts when determining responsibility.
Examples
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A commissive offense involves actively breaking the law rather than simply failing to comply.
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Ethics discussions often compare commissive wrongdoing with harm caused by inaction.
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The judge ruled that his actions were commissive in nature.
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Her commissive behavior during the meeting raised concerns.
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A commissive act, such as theft, is often punished more severely than inaction.
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The law clearly defines a commissive offense as one that involves actively causing harm.
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His commissive nature meant he always took immediate action rather than waiting for others.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
commissive = commit (semi-transparent) = commiss + ive
Derived from the notion of 'committing' (most recognizably 'commit') with the adjectival suffix '-ive'; the legal/technical nuance focusing on deliberate or wrongful action and the orthographic form make the relation somewhat less immediately transparent.
Etymology
Commissive is related to the words commit and commission, from the Latin parts com- 'together' and mittere 'to send'. That idea of 'putting into action' helps you remember that a commissive act is an active doing of something, often on purpose, rather than a failure to act.