distinctive

Etymology

From Latin distinctus, perfect passive participle of distinguere (“to push apart, to divide”), + -ive (forming adjectives signifying relation or tendency to). Cognate with French distinctif and Medieval Latin distinctivus.

adj

1. Distinguishing, used to or enabling the distinguishing of some thing.
   a product in distinctive packaging
   Our Apparell was giuen vs as a signe distinctiue to discern betwixt sex and sex. 1583, Philip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses, Folio V
2. (rare) Discriminating, discerning, having the ability to distinguish between things.
3. Characteristic, typical.
   his distinctive bass voice
4. (rare) Distinguished, being distinct in character or position.
   The refugees... at length ceased to exist as a distinctive body among the people. 1867, Samuel Smiles, chapter XVII, in The Huguenots, page 432
5. (Hebrew grammar, of accents) Used to separate clauses in place of stops.
   These are the main distinctive accents, and by stopping at them... the reader will do justice to the sense. 1874, Andrew Bruce Davidson, Introductory Hebrew Grammar, page 27
6. (linguistics, of sounds) Distinguishing a particular sense of word.
   Normally we symbolize only phonemes (distinctive features) so far as we can determine them. 1927, L. Bloomfield et al., Language, number 3, page 129

noun

1. A distinctive thing: a quality or property permitting distinguishing; a characteristic.
   ...the red umbrella, the distinctive of royalty here... 1816, Maurice Keatinge, Travels through France and Spain to Morocco, volume I, page 189
2. (Hebrew grammar) A distinctive accent.
   A distinctive of less power than Zakeph is Ṭiphḥâ. 1874, Andrew Bruce Davidson, Introductory Hebrew Grammar, page 27
3. (theology) A distinctive belief, tenet, or dogma of a denomination or sect.
   Mennonites could go forth somewhat detached from the chauvinism of Western culture—but not so from the Mennonite distinctives. 1979, Theron F. Schlabach, “Gospel versus Gospel”, in Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, page 154