Serving to designate, mark, or indicate; functioning as a designation or label.
From designate plus -ive (tending to, having the quality of). Creates an adjective meaning 'having the quality of designating or marking out.'
Linguists use 'designative' to talk about words that simply label things—like 'the word X designates the object Y.' It's a technical term that separates pure labeling from all the emotional baggage we add to words.
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