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alling forth; serving to evoke; developing. Evocative power over all that is eloquent and expressive in the better soul of man. W. Pater.

Expressive of great sensibility; attended by, or evincing, sensibility; as, he made a feeling representation of his wrongs.

The forehead, countenance, or personal presence, as expressive of character or temper, and especially, of boldness of disposition, sometimes of impudence; seeming; as, a bold front; a hardened front. With smiling fronts encountering. Shak. The inhabitants showed a bold front. Macaulay.

External appearance, as expressive of the feelings or character; looks; fashion or manner, as of speech. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel. Shak.

A motion of the body or limbs expressive of sentiment or passion; any action or posture intended to express an idea or a passion, or to enforce or emphasize an argument, assertion, or opinion. Humble and reverent gestures. Hooker. Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love. Milton.…

prone, or move uneasily with the body prostrate on the earth; to lie fiat on one's belly, expressive of abjectness; to crawl. To creep and grovel on the ground. Dryden.

Emblematic; expressive of some meaning by characters, pictures, or figures; as, hieroglyphic writing; a hieroglyphic obelisk. Pages no better than blanks to common minds, to his, hieroglyphical of wisest secrets. Prof. Wilson.

Written in, or pertaining to, hierograms; expressive of sacred writing. Bp. Warburton.

To utter a sound expressive of distress; to cry aloud and mournfully; to lament; to wail. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand. Is. xiii. 6.

A verb expressive of imitation or resemblance. [R.]

Expressive of command; containing positive command; authoritatively or absolutely directive; commanding; authoritative; as, imperative orders. The suit of kings are imperative. Bp. Hall.

A writing, as the means of giving formal expression to some act; a writing expressive of some act, contract, process, as a deed, contract, writ, etc. Burrill.

Not reverent; showing a want of reverence; expressive of a want of veneration; as, an irreverent babbler; an irreverent jest.

nicating ideas; specifically, human speech; the expression of ideas by the voice; sounds, expressive of thought, articulated by the organs of the throat and mouth.

See International law, under International. -- Law of nature. (a) A broad generalization expressive of the constant action, or effect, of natural conditions; as, death is a law of nature; self-defense is a law of nature. See Law, 4. (b) A term denoting the standard, or system, of morality deducible from a study of the…

Speaking; expressive. [R.] J. Philips.

Originating in, or expressive of, languishing love. Where nightingales their love-sick ditty sing. Dryden.

habit. Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them. Acts xvii. 2. Air and manner are more expressive than words. Richardson.

To think on; to meditate on. Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise. Thomson.

A suffix used to form abstract nouns expressive of quality or state; as, goodness, greatness.