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expletive

exp·le·tive

UK/ɪkˈspliːtɪv/ US/ˈɛksplətɪv/ uncommon

noun

1.
2.

Origin

From Late Latin explētīvus (“serving to fill out”), from Latin explētus, the perfect passive participle of expleō (“fill out”), itself from ex (“out, completely”) + *pleō (“fill”).

Phrases

  • expletive deleted
  • expletive infixation
  • syntactic expletive

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.