ELECTIVE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Elective

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/ɪlˈɛktɪv/ Listen

adjective

Elective adj.

Exerting the power of choice; selecting; as, an elective act.

Pertaining to, or consisting in, choice, or right of choosing; electoral. "The independent use of their elective franchise."

Bestowed or passing by election; as, an elective office. "Kings of Rome were at first elective;... for such are the conditions of an elective kingdom."

Dependent on choice; that can be refused; as, an elective college course. Opposite of required or mandatory.

Elective affinity or Elective attraction (Chem.), a tendency to unite with certain things; chemism.

noun

Elective n. In an American college, an optional study or course of study; a course that is not required. (Colloq.)

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Etymology of 'Elective'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Elective" Quotes from Famous Books

... the penal laws, however harsh these might appear. Had they been kept in vigour for another half-century, it was his conviction that Popery would have been all but extinguished in Ireland. But he thought that after admitting Romanists to the elective franchise, it was a vain notion that they could be permanently or advantageously deterred from using that franchise in favour of those of their ...

— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... Great or the Conqueror, but he was the Bastard from the beginning. There was then no generally received doctrine as to the succession to kingdoms and duchies. Everywhere a single kingly or princely house supplied, as a rule, candidates for the succession. Everywhere, even where the elective doctrine was strong, a full-grown son was always likely to succeed his father. The growth of feudal notions too had greatly strengthened the hereditary principle. Still no rule had anywhere been laid down for cases ...

— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... democracies were pure in form, in which the people governed immediately. For every citizen had a right to appear in the assembly and vote, and he could sit in the assembly, which acted as an open court. Indeed, the elective officers of the democracy were not considered as representatives of the people. They were the state and not subject to impeachment, though they should break over all law. After they returned among the citizens and were no longer the state ...

— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... married, as they said, "in deference to anarch custom." The two infants had already proclaimed a rebellion against the institution of marriage, for which they proposed to substitute the doctrine of elective affinity. For two years they wandered about England, Ireland, and Wales, living on a small allowance from Shelley's father, who had disinherited his son because of his ill-considered marriage. The pair soon separated, and two years later Shelley, ...

— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... existing conditions and to the character of the people, and as to whether it might not, though admirable in itself, be too expensive for the work to be performed, was little thought of. Any organisation which rested on "the elective principle," and provided an arena for free public discussion, was sure to be well received, and these conditions ...

— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

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