arrestive

arrest +‎ -ive

arrestive (comparative more arrestive, superlative most arrestive)

1. Tending to arrest.
   1. Tending to stop or slow a process.
      • 1850, James McCosh, The Method of the Divine Government, New York: Robert Caster, 1851, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 422,

        Some [emotions] are Instigative, and others Arrestive.

      • 1973, Hugh Downs, Potential: The Way to Emotional Maturity, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Chapter 11, p. 188,

        This reactive recoiling from something clearly in our nature is itself unnatural. It is as arrestive of emotional progress as the opposite practice of uncontrolled indulgence, which is a symptom, not a cause, of emotional immaturity.

      • 2006, Mea A. Weinberg et al., Comprehensive Periodontics for the Dental Hygienist, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2nd edition, Chapter 21, p. 315,

        […] most periodontal therapy aims to prevent the initiation, progression, or recurrence of periodontal diseases. This can be termed arrestive periodontal therapy.

   2. (dated) Tending to capture people’s attention.

      Synonyms: arresting, captivating, conspicuous, remarkable, striking

      • 1870, Margaret Junkin Preston, “The Color-Bearer” in Old Song and New, Philadelphia: Lippincott, p. ,144,

        As fast they pressed with laboring breath,

        Clinched teeth and knitted frown,

        The sharp, arrestive cry rang out,—

        “The color-bearer’s down!”

      • 1899, Israel Zangwill, “Bethulah” in They That Walk in Darkness: Ghetto Tragedies, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, pp. 198-199,

        I noted a curious streak of yellow in the silvered eyebrows, as if youth clung on, so to speak, by a single hair, and underneath these arrestive eyebrows green pupils alternately glowed and smouldered.

      • 1916, C. Alphonso Smith, O. Henry Biography, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Chapter 1, p. 3,

        First, the reader notices in an O. Henry story the quiet but arrestive beginning.

• arrestively
• arrestiveness

• Traversie