Adjective: constitutive 'kón-sti,t(y)oo-tiv or kun'sti-chu-tiv
- Forming an essential or integral part of a whole, especially of a physical structure
"They attended a workshop on the constitutive relations of soils"; "Trust is constitutive of a healthy relationship";
- constituent, constitutional, component
- (philosophy, law) having the power to establish or define the fundamental nature of something
"The constitutive rules of chess define what counts as a legal move"
- (biology) continuously produced rather than produced in response to something
"The gene showed constitutive expression in all tissues"
See also: essential
Encyclopedia: Constitutive