additive

UK/ˈæd.ɪ.tɪv/US/ˈæd.ɪ.tɪv/

nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,586 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: additives

An additive is a substance put into food or fuel to change its properties. Food additives, no artificial additives, a fuel additive.

In Europe the permitted food ones carry E numbers, which are simply approval codes and not a mark of anything artificial, since vitamin C is one. Fuel additives are sold to clean an engine and are argued about endlessly.

Definitions of additive

1nounadditiveA substance put into food or fuel to change its properties.C2
“The juice is made from fresh fruit, with no sugar or artificial additives.”

additive is a substance.

Where it comes from

Latin additivus comes from addere, to add.

Proto-Indo-European
*deh₃-
Latin
additivus
English, today
additive

From Latin additivus, from the participial stem of Latin addere (“to add”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

additive in the wild

With the advent of ultra-processed foods in the late 20th century, many additives having both natural and artificial origin were introduced.
Food additive
In Europe and internationally, many additives are designated with E numbers, while in the United States, additives in amounts deemed safe for human consumption are designated as GRAS.
Food additive
Having a single unified list for food additives was first agreed upon in 1962 with food colouring.
E number
In elementary mathematics, the additive inverse is often referred to as the opposite number, or the negative of a number.
Additive inverse
Not all sets where addition is defined have an additive inverse, such as the natural numbers.
Additive inverse

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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