obligativeadj.n.

1596 T. Bell Suruey Popery iii. ii. 240 Or giue power obligatiue vnto them.

1622 J. Mabbe tr. M. Alemán Rogue ii. 242 Bills, and answers,..processiue, iustificatiue, obligatiue,..renunciatiue, and infinite other the like.

a1834 S. T. Coleridge Lit. Remains (1839) IV. 436 We must inquire after that duty in which all others find their several degrees and dignities, from which they derive their obligative force.

1875 E. Poste tr. Gaius Institutionum Iuris Civilis (ed. 2) i. 73 Contract in the narrower sense may..be distinguished as an obligative contract.

1980 J. Raz Concept of Legal Syst. iii. 58 Obligative laws may contain permissions or non-commands as subsidiary provisions.

1877 W. D. Whitney Essent. Eng. Gram. v. 122 With must and ought (to) we make forms which may be called obligative, ‘implying obligation’: thus, I must give, I ought to give.

1968 J. Lyons Introd. Theoret. Linguistics vii. 309 The distinction between the ‘obligative’ and the ‘inferential’ sense associated with the auxiliary verb must in English is neutralized in a non-part sentence like He must come regularly.

1968 J. Lyons Introd. Theoret. Linguistics vii. 309 There is a further distinction within the ‘obligative’ in English, which has to do with the acceptance or fulfilment of the obligation.

1974 W. P. Lehmann Proto-Indo-European Syntax iv. 105 The PIE subjunctive may resemble in meaning an obligative.

1989 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 34 7 Neither the assumptive modal yóò nor the progressive n can follow the obligative modal gbódò ‘must’.

1895 Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 22 195 The fungal symbiont..has acquired the habits of a semi-obligative parasite upon its algal symbiont.]

1911 Bot. Gaz. 52 19 It is reasonable to assume..that the lack of uniformity in results implies both obligative symbiosis and the need of a physiologically balanced culture medium.

1925 Bot. Gaz. 79 345 Symbiosis is believed by these men to be obligative for the normal development of orchids.

1966 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 56 1135 This..revived our interest in the possibility that antilymphocytic rabbit immunoglobulin acts as an obligative antigen in mice.

2001 Environmental Toxicol. & Chem. 20 1805 These values..may reflect the fact that H[yalella]. azteca is an epibenthic species and not an obligative burrower.

1678 J. Norris Coll. Misc. (1699) 165 The Obligativeness and Reasonableness of the Institution.

1712 G. Berkeley Passive Obed. §34. 44 Notwithstanding all that is said of the obligativeness and priority of the Law of Self-Preservation,..there is no particular Law which obliges any Man to prefer his own Temporal Good..to that of another Man.

1831 R. Sharp Lett. & Ess. (1834) 150 The obligativeness of moral conduct.