Definition of "expressive" []

• Of, relating to, or characterized by expression. (adjective)
• Serving to express or indicate: actions expressive of frustration. (adjective)
• Full of expression; significant: an expressive glance. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Given that the state being articulated is not strictly necessarily emotional, other linguists prefer the term expressive, so that's what I'll run with."
• "In this case our ordinary system of habits -- those which we call expressive of our "real selves" -- inhibit or quench (keep inactive or partially inactive) those habits and instinctive tendencies which belong largely in the past."
• "And that the literal signification has not altogether been lost in the spiritual and metaphorical use of it, as a term expressive of religious experience, is quite plain from many of the cases in which it occurs."