normative

[ nawr-muh-tiv ]

adjective

1. of or relating to a norm, especially an assumed norm regarded as the standard of correctness in behavior, speech, writing, etc.
2. tending or attempting to establish such a norm, especially by the prescription of rules:

   normative grammar.

3. reflecting the assumption of such a norm or favoring its establishment:

   a normative attitude.

normative

/ ˈnɔːmətɪv /

adjective

1. implying, creating, or prescribing a norm or standard, as in language

   normative grammar

2. expressing value judgments or prescriptions as contrasted with stating facts

   normative economics

3. of, relating to, or based on norms

Derived Forms

• ˈnormatively, adverb
• ˈnormativeness, noun

Other Words From

• non-nor·ma·tive adjective
• nor·ma·tive·ly adverb
• nor·ma·tive·ness noun
• un·nor·ma·tive adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of normative¹

First recorded in 1875–80; norm + -ative

Example Sentences

It was a set of normative decisions about how vaccines should be prioritized, formalized in the language of an algorithm.

From MIT Technology Review

It’s a sign that decades of media invisibility for non hetero-and-cis-normative people and their experiences are at long last giving way to an era of increased visibility.

From Washington Blade

If the coronavirus continues to be as significant as it appears to be, we’re going to see health systems get overloaded and not be capable of responding to both the virus and normative health issues.

From Nautilus

For five months, you did not have health services that were tending to people’s normative healthcare.

From Nautilus

Any work that shakes up our heteronormative, cis-normative expectation as an audience to wake us up to politics of our given moment – and to me, the best drag does that – that’s what I’m really interested in.

From Washington Blade

Common sense is not a just a normative judgment about wisdom, but a structural feature of any functioning organization.

From The Daily Beast

“We are crushing it on the normative front,” the ever-blunt Ambassador Power declared.

From The Daily Beast

Where Spreadsheets tries to track existing trends, Kahnoodle is more normative.

From The Daily Beast

As a result of violence being normative, sexuality here is also violent.

From The Daily Beast

I finally said, “You know, HIV is transmittable by good old-fashioned, red-blooded, hetero-normative, married sex.”

From The Daily Beast

Mathematics is often cited as an example of purely normative thinking dependent upon a priori canons and supra-empirical material.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus is answered the dispute whether logic is empirical or normative, psychological or regulative.

From Project Gutenberg

The structure of alleged normative a priori mathematics is in truth the crowned result of ages of toilsome experience.

From Project Gutenberg

They have both a eulogistic or normative sense, and a descriptive sense; a meaning de jure and a meaning de facto.

From Project Gutenberg

It is the purity of the value-forms imagined in philosophy that makes philosophy "normative."

From Project Gutenberg