agglutinative

[uh-gloot-n-ey-tiv, uh-gloot-n-uh-]

adjective

1. tending or having power to agglutinate or unite.

   an agglutinative substance.

2. Linguistics.,  pertaining to or noting a language, as Turkish, characterized by agglutination.

agglutinative

/ əˈɡluːtɪnətɪv /

adjective

1. tending to join or capable of joining

2. Also: agglomerative. linguistics denoting languages, such as Hungarian, whose morphology is characterized by agglutination Compare analytic synthetic polysynthetic

Other Word Forms

• antiagglutinative adjective
• nonagglutinative adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of agglutinative¹

First recorded in 1625–35; agglutinate + -ive

Example Sentences

This frugality, its most basic trait, is then tempered by its second most basic trait, its agglutinative nature—the construction of words by the incessant addition of prefixes and suffixes to the roots.

From The New Yorker

Turkish is an agglutinative language, in which the various parts of speech, tense and case markers are run together.

From The Guardian

Proper linguists should probably look away now as I butcher the subject with simplifications but languages can be divided into those that agglutinative and those that are fusional.

From Forbes

In agglutinative languages the union of words may be compared to mechanical compounds, in inflective languages to chemical compounds.

From Project Gutenberg

One day, discussing Turkish, he asked a visitor if he knew what an agglutinative language was.

From New York Times

Related Words

• syrupy 
• tacky 
• viscous