Selective

Selective

Adjective · /sɪˈlektɪv/ · relating to or involving careful choice

Definition

Selective means choosing carefully, applying to only certain things or people, not to all. Something selective operates on a subset rather than the whole: a selective school admits only pupils who meet a specific standard; a selective herbicide kills only certain plants; a selective reader chooses books carefully rather than reading everything. The word can also be slightly critical — someone described as selective may be accused of using only the evidence that supports their case, ignoring the rest. Selective memory is the tendency to remember what suits you and forget what does not.

Origin

Selective derives from the Latin selectus, the past participle of seligere — to pick out, to choose — from se meaning apart and legere meaning to choose or gather. The root legere also gives English the words elect, elegant, and lecture, all involving a kind of choosing or gathering. Selective entered English in the seventeenth century, initially in biological and botanical contexts — selective breeding, selective cultivation — before expanding into educational policy, military conscription, and everyday usage to mean any act of careful or deliberate choosing.