Adjective

(en adjective)

Causing the physical reduction or diminution of something.

(chemistry, metallurgy, biology) That reduces a substance etc. to a more simple or basic form.

*1848 , F Knapp, Chemical Technology; Or, Chemistry Applied to the Arts and to Manufactures :

*:On the relative reductive powers of different classes of American coals, as demonstrated by the experiments with oxide of lead.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-03

, author= , title=The Smallest Cell , volume=101, issue=2, page=83 , magazine= citation , passage=It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.}}

*1847 , John Johnson, The theological works of the rev. John Johnson :

*:But then beside the primary and direct sense of the text, the ancients commonly supposed that there was a reductive or anagogical meaning, in which it might be taken.