- characterized by or pertaining to emotion: the emotive and rational capacities of humankind.
- productive of or directed toward the emotions: Artistic distortion is often an emotive use of form.
- tending or designed to arouse emotion
- of or characterized by emotion
1735, “causing movement,” from Latin emot-, past participle stem of emovere (see emotion) + -ive. Meaning “capable of emotion” is from 1881; that of “evoking emotions” is from 1923, originally in literary criticism.