subjective

subjective

English

Etymology

subject +‎ -ive

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /səbˈd͡ʒɛktɪv/, /sʌbˈd͡ʒɛktɪv/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛktɪv
• Hyphenation: sub‧ject‧ive

Adjective

subjective (comparative more subjective, superlative most subjective)

1. Formed, as in opinions, based upon a person's feelings or intuition, not upon observation or reasoning; coming more from within the observer than from observations of the external environment.
2. Pertaining to subjects as opposed to objects (A subject is one who perceives or is aware; an object is the thing perceived or the thing that the subject is aware of.)
3. Resulting from or pertaining to personal mindsets or experience, arising from perceptive mental conditions within the brain and not necessarily or directly from external stimuli.
   • 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. […] But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.

4. Lacking in reality or substance.
5. As used by Carl Jung, the innate worldview orientation of the introverted personality types.
6. (philosophy, psychology) Experienced by a person mentally and not directly verifiable by others.
7. (linguistics, grammar) Describing conjugation of a verb that indicates only the subject (agent), not indicating the object (patient) of the action. (In linguistic descriptions of Tundra Nenets, among others.)
   • 2014, Irina Nikolaeva, A Grammar of Tundra Nenets, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, →ISBN

     The general finite stem is the verbal stem which serves as the basis of inflection in the indicative present and past in the subjective conjugation and the objective conjugation with the singular and dual object.

Antonyms

• objective

Derived terms

• subjectiveness
• subjectivity

Translations

based upon subjective feelings or intuition

Armenian: սուբյեկտիվ (hy) (subyektiv) Asturian: suxetivu Belarusian: суб'екты́ўны (subʺjektýŭny) Bulgarian: субекти́вен (bg) (subektíven) Catalan: subjectiu (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 主觀／主观 (zh) (zhǔguān) Czech: subjektivní (cs) Danish: subjektiv Dutch: subjectief (nl) Esperanto: subjektiva Finnish: subjektiivinen (fi) French: subjectif (fr) Galician: subxectivo Greek: υποκειμενικός (el) (ypokeimenikós) Italian: subiettivo Japanese: 主観的 (ja) (しゅかんてき, shukanteki) Kazakh: субъективтік (subektivtık), субъектілік (subektılık) Korean: 주관적 (ko) (jugwanjeok) Macedonian: субјективен (subjektiven) Portuguese: subjetivo (pt) Romanian: subiectiv (ro) Russian: субъекти́вный (ru) (subʺjektívnyj) Spanish: subjetivo (es) Turkish: öznel (tr) Ukrainian: суб'єкти́вний (subʺjektývnyj) Welsh: goddrychol (cy)

lacking in reality or substance

Welsh: goddrychol (cy)

as used by Carl Jung

Welsh: goddrychol (cy)

experienced by a person mentally

Welsh: goddrychol (cy)

indicating the grammatical subject

Bulgarian: подложен (podložen) Welsh: goddrychol (cy)

indicating the grammatical subject

Welsh: gwrthrychol (cy)

Further reading

• "subjective" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 308.

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /syb.ʒɛk.tiv/

Adjective

subjective

1. feminine singular of subjectif