# apertive
## English
### Etymology

From Latin apertūra (“opening”) +‎ -ive.

### Adjective

apertive (comparative more apertive, superlative most apertive)
* (medicine) Causing the body to open; dissolving blockages or having a purgative or diuretic effect.
** 1657, A Medicinal Dispensatory, containing the whole body of physick, page 261:Both its root and seeds are hydragogeous, and very apertive, and therefuore usefull in hydroptical and watry diseases.
** 1666, William Boghurst, Loimographia, Or an Experimentall Relation of the Plague, of what hath happened Remarkable in the last Plague in the City of London:Oppression and stopping at Brest and Stomach. Though very few live when they come to these things, yet here and there one makes a shift to creep over this and many other threatning signes; but you must not goe about to cure this as you doe other stoppings in the stomach, as by squills oximells, bomits, but by apertive medicines as this:
** 1855, Cuthbert William Johnson, The Farmer's and Planter's Encyclopedia of Rural Affairs, page 179:The wine made from this sap is said to be apertive, and detersive.
** 1923, Joseph William Mellor, A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry:I have found it in the waters of Hornhausen, which owe to this salt their apertive and diuretic properties.
* Pertaining to or using an aperture; apertural.
** 1977, T. R. Thomas, M. B. King, Surface topography in engineering, page 42:In this part the author leaves the stylus method and passes on to the interference method, which is very valuable because it can resolve scratches down to a width of about 0.00002" or 0.00003", provided that a high apertive microscope objective is used.
** 1980, John H. Menkes, Barry S. Siegal, Remote Sensing in Geology, page 86:Seasat was launched in June 1978 and carries a synthetic apertive radar.
** 1988, Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, page 117:From the apertive field, equivalent magnetic currents are obtained using the principle of equivalence.
* Tending to open.
** 1969, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, page 1308:Prefractures are weak or apertive when the prefixed vowel has a greater closure formed by the tongue or lips than the original vowel, so that the result is a progressive opening.
** 1983, The Publishers Weekly - Volume 224, page 56:Eberhart is a philosopher-poet whose avowed ambition is “to open/ Poetry to apertive speculation.”
** 2013, Doc Togden, an odd boy, page 105:I was imbued with an amorphous sense of capability — but that word makes little sense to me. It was a sense of apertive aptness.

### Noun

apertive (plural apertives)
* A substance that can be used medicinally for its apertive effect.
** 1942, Natural History Society of Jamaica, Natural History Notes, page 149:The Love Bush seems to have been used in olden days in medicine, for Browne in 1789 writes: "It has been always esteemed as a diuretic and apertive, and formerly used as an ingredient in come of the compositions of the shops".
** 1979, Jane I. LaRue, Guide to selected medicinal herbs, page 10:Gentian has been used for centuries as a tonic to aid digestion; and it is currently employed in the manufacture of apertives and bitters, notably Gentiane, a Swiss digestive liquor.
** 1999, J. C. Dagar, Plant Resources of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, page 475:The bark is also used in a liquid given as an apertive to horses and cattle.