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selective

selective

118 4.3
To choose carefully and accept only certain people or things
  • adjective
  • /sɪˈlɛktɪv/
translation icon : selectivo
  • She is very selective about the friends she allows into her life.
  • a selective college
  • a selective university
  • highly selective

So being intentional and selective about what you're letting in.

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Examples

  • I'm required by law to be a little more selective than I used to be.

  • She is very selective and he is definitely her type.

  • I I choose to be selective in things I do.

  • Alright, I am very selective on who I close my store down early for.

  • I think you can be more selective.

  • How much more selective do they want to be in choosing jobs?

  • We wanna be selective and rebuild this from the ground up.

  • Claude saw what he saw with the selective vision that children and artists often share.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • The other response to information overload is selective exposure.

  • Beijing found it difficult to be selective in the kinds of foreign contacts it wished to maintain.

    Academic text (1990)

Synonyms

picky
vsselective
67 4.7

Being hard to please about food or small details

is more general and avoids focus on tiny particulars
choosy
vsselective
15 3.9

Hard to please when choosing things like clothes or food

is broader and lacks the narrow situational focus
choosey
vsselective
  • Informal
6.8

A person who is very picky about what they accept

is neutral and lacks the same strong fussiness

Antonyms

88 4.1

Including all the things or people mentioned, even the limits

Happening without careful choice of people or things

Compounds

3 5.8

A United States system that registers men and can require them to join the military

A US government agency that registers men for possible military service

selective amnesia
  • Specialized
1 8.2

Forgetting certain events or facts, often when it helps avoid blame

A medicine that treats depression by raising a brain chemical called serotonin

selective jamming
  • Specialized
9.3

An action done on purpose that blocks signals on one radio frequency

selective lipectomy
  • Specialized
9.6

Surgery that removes fat from certain parts of the body

7.0

A system that by law makes people join the military when chosen by the government

How Selective

fastidious
8 8.0
picky
67 4.7
selective
118 4.3

Surface Forms

selective positive

Morphology

selective = select (transparent) = select + ive

Formed by the verb/adjective 'select' plus the adjectival suffix '-ive', yielding an adjective meaning 'tending to select' or 'choosing carefully'.

Etymology

The word selective comes from select, which comes from an old Latin word meaning 'to choose'. So to be selective is to 'choose carefully' and accept only certain people or things.