Definition of "determinative" [de•ter•mi•na•tive]

• Tending, able, or serving to determine. See Synonyms at decisive. (adjective)
• A determining factor. (noun)

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.

• "Several factors lead Breyer to see the Ten Commandments tablets on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol as secular, but the one he calls "determinative" is that nobody has publicly complained about it before."
• "So even McGann's landmark essay, "Keats and the Historical Method of Literary Criticism," which provocatively situated Keats's aesthetic practices and their history of reception within determinative cultural, social, and especially political contexts, has not really altered what"
• "Many of their roots are identical; their plural forms are closely related; and in all the feminine determinative is alike."