MEANING
1. Having enough influence or force to settle an issue or determine an outcome.
2. Able to make choices firmly and promptly, without prolonged hesitation.
Use it for
describing evidence that resolves a disputed point; identifying a factor that determines the outcome; distinguishing decisive support from merely suggestive supportSeparates evidence or influence that settles an issue from a person’s ability to decide firmly. Academic functions: Evidence, Evaluation.
Words that belong together
- decisive evidence
- a decisive factor
- a decisive contribution
On the page
The newly dated document provides decisive evidence against the proposed chronology.
The analysis asks whether access to credit played a decisive role or only a supporting one.
The biography portrays a decisive leader while questioning the quality of several decisions.
A decisive response can still be based on incomplete evidence.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- decisive
Usage notes
Attributive or predicative. More decisive and most decisive are natural. Decisive evidence concerns its effect on a judgment, not a numeric confidence level by itself. Register: neutral. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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