Definition of "relative" []

• Having pertinence or relevance; connected or related. (adjective)
• Considered in comparison with something else: the relative quiet of the suburbs. (adjective)
• Dependent on or interconnected with something else; not absolute. See Synonyms at dependent. (adjective)
• Grammar Referring to or qualifying an antecedent, as the pronoun who in the man who was on TV or that in the dictionary that I use. (adjective)
• Music Having the same key signature. Used of major and minor scales and keys: A minor is the relative minor of C major. (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.

• "T.e philosopher P.T. Geach first broached the subject of relative identity and introduced the phrase ˜relative identity™."
• "And, indeed, so long as relative age only is spoken of, correspondence in succession _is_ correspondence in age; it is _relative_ contemporaneity."
• "_relative_ rarity of the main varieties of each stamp at least; and it is this relative rarity that we are after in order to approximate the original supplies of the main varieties."