MEANING
Belonging separately to each of the people or things already mentioned.
Use it for
assigning separate contributions to different participants; comparing entities without implying shared ownership of every feature; clarifying which role belongs to which entityAssigns each role or property to its own previously mentioned person or thing. Academic functions: Comparison / Contrast.
Words that belong together
- their respective roles
- the respective contributions
- their respective contexts
On the page
The comparison evaluates the institutions within their respective historical contexts.
The authors specify the researchers’ respective contributions rather than attributing every task to the group collectively.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- respective
Usage notes
Normally before a plural noun with a possessive or determiner: their respective roles. No ordinary comparative or superlative. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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