Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - descriptive

 adjective  Date: 1723  1. serving to describe a ~ account  2.  a. referring to, constituting, or grounded in matters of observation or experience the ~ basis of science  b. factually grounded or informative rather than normative, prescriptive, or emotive ~ cultural studies  3. of a modifier  a. expressing the quality, kind, or condition of what is denoted by the modified term hot in “hot water” is a ~ adjective  b. nonrestrictive  4. of, relating to, or dealing with the structure of a language at a particular time usually with exclusion of historical and comparative data ~ linguistics  • ~ly adverb  • ~ness noun