elective

Etymology

elect + -ive

adj

1. Of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.
   1697, John Dryden, The Works of Virgil […] translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, dedicatory preface to the Marquess of Normanby, For his Conscience could not but whisper to the Arbitrary Monarch, that the Kings of Rome were at first Elective, and Govern’d not without a Senate:
   Man thus endued with an elective voice, Must be supplied with objects of his choice. 1782, William Cowper, “The Progress of Error”, in Poems,, London: J. Johnson, page 43
   […] they rested their hopes of redress on the independent use of their elective franchise; 1854, George Bancroft, chapter 35, in History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent,, volume 6, Boston: Little, Brown, page 185
   See the populace, millions upon millions, handsome, tall, muscular, both sexes, clothed in easy and dignified clothes―teaching, commanding, marrying, generating, equally electing and elective; 1860, Walt Whitman, “Proto-Leaf”, in Leaves of Grass, Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, page 21
   1896, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, “The South African Question” in Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi, Madras: G.A. Natesan, 3rd edition, 1922, p. 6, [The bill] says that no natives of countries (not of European origin) which have not hitherto possessed elective representative institutions […] shall be placed on the voters roll […]
2. Open to choice; freely chosen.
   My insurance wouldn't pay for the operation because it was elective surgery.
   […] his Lordship is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it, differs from an action voluntary and elective, for even the setting of a mans foot, in the posture for walking, and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done, and though afterward it became easie & habitual so as to be done without fore-thought, yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceedeth from election. 1654, Thomas Hobbes, Of Libertie and Necessitie, London: F. Eaglesfield, pages 12–13
   1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, London: T. Payne & Son, and T. Cadell, Volume 5, Book 9, Chapter 8, pp. 160-161, “You know not then,” said Cecilia, in a faint voice, “my inability to comply?” “Your ability, or inability, I presume are elective?” “Oh no!—my power is lost!—my fortune itself is gone!”
   [Her friends] are, after all, her elective siblings who have distanced themselves from the ways of the past, their families […] 2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup, Toronto: Viking, page 23
   […] That blog is a game that you don’t really take seriously, it’s like choosing an interesting elective evening class to complete your credits. 2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, chapter 38, in Americanah, New York: Knopf, page 346
   Now some adventuring imbecile had acquired an elective sickness and was paying its price. 2019, Dave Eggers, The Parade, New York: Vintage, page 130

noun

1. Something that is an option or may be freely chosen, especially a course of study.
   I still need to decide which electives to take along with my compulsory courses next semester.