different between elect vs elective

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ?l?ctus, past participle of ?lig? (“to pick out, choose, elect”), from ?- (“out”) + leg? (“to pick out, pick, gather, collect, etc.”); see legend.

Cognate to eclectic, which is via Ancient Greek rather than Latin, hence prefix ?? (ek), rather than e- (from ex).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??l?kt/, /i??l?kt/
• Hyphenation: elect
• Rhymes: -?kt

Noun

elect (plural elects or elect)

1. One chosen or set apart.
2. (theology) In Calvinist theology, one foreordained to Heaven. In other Christian theologies, someone chosen by God for salvation.

   • Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth.

   • Shall not God avenge his won elect?

Antonyms

• reprobate

Derived terms

• president-elect

Translations

Verb

elect (third-person singular simple present elects, present participle electing, simple past and past participle elected)

1. (transitive) To choose or make a decision (to do something)
2. (transitive) To choose (a candidate) in an election

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

elect (not comparable)

1. (postpositive) Who has been elected in a specified post, but has not yet entered office.

   He is the President elect.
2. Chosen; taken by preference from among two or more.
   • the elect angels

Translations

Further reading

• elect in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• elect in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Etymology

elect +? -ive

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??l?kt?v/
• Rhymes: -?kt?v

Adjective

elective (comparative more elective, superlative most elective)

1. Of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.

   Synonym: electoral

   Antonyms: appointive, hereditary

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Works of Virgil […] translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, dedicatory preface to the Marquess of Normanby,^[2]

     For his Conscience could not but whisper to the Arbitrary Monarch, that the Kings of Rome were at first Elective, and Govern’d not without a Senate:

   • 1782, William Cowper, “The Progress of Error” in Poems, London: J. Johnson, p. 43,^[3]

     Man thus endued with an elective voice,

     Must be supplied with objects of his choice.

   • 1854, George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent, Boston: Little, Brown, Volume 6, Chapter 35, p. 185,^[4]

     […] they rested their hopes of redress on the independent use of their elective franchise;

   • 1860, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, “Proto-Leaf,” p. 21,^[5]

     See the populace, millions upon millions, handsome, tall, muscular, both sexes, clothed in easy and dignified clothes?teaching, commanding, marrying, generating, equally electing and elective;

   • 1896, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, “The South African Question” in Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi, Madras: G.A. Natesan, 3rd edition, 1922, p. 6,^[6]

     [The bill] says that no natives of countries (not of European origin) which have not hitherto possessed elective representative institutions […] shall be placed on the voters roll […]

2. Open to choice; freely chosen.

   Synonyms: discretionary, optional, voluntary

   Antonyms: compulsory, mandatory, obligatory, required, involuntary

   • 1654, Thomas Hobbes, Of Libertie and Necessitie, London: F. Eaglesfield, pp. 12-13,^[7]

     […] his Lordship is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it, differs from an action voluntary and elective, for even the setting of a mans foot, in the posture for walking, and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done, and though afterward it became easie & habitual so as to be done without fore-thought, yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceedeth from election.

   • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne & Son, and T. Cadell, Volume 5, Book 9, Chapter 8, pp. 160-161,^[8]

     “You know not then,” said Cecilia, in a faint voice, “my inability to comply?”

     “Your ability, or inability, I presume are elective?”

     “Oh no!—my power is lost!—my fortune itself is gone!”

   • 2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup, Toronto: Viking, p. 23,^[9]

     [Her friends] are, after all, her elective siblings who have distanced themselves from the ways of the past, their families […]

   • 2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah, New York: Knopf, Chapter 38, p. 346,^[10]

     “ […] That blog is a game that you don’t really take seriously, it’s like choosing an interesting elective evening class to complete your credits.”

   • 2019, Dave Eggers, The Parade, New York: Vintage, p. 130,

     Now some adventuring imbecile had acquired an elective sickness and was paying its price.

Related terms

• elect
• election

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

elective (plural electives)

1. Something that is an option or may be freely chosen, especially a course of study.

Translations

Anagrams

• cleveite

References