recreative

From recreate +‎ -ive.^[1]

recreative (not comparable)

1. Being, or pertaining to, recreation.
   • 1892, Occident - Volume 22, page 36:

     Between the two extremes of college men the unsocial dig and the flunking swell, lies the majority, who, acknowledging the duty and merit of hard work, see the value in social and recreative line, but are at somewhat of a loss, seemingly, how to proportionize the time given to the different sides of college life, or how far to allow themselves to go on the more attractive side.

   • 2007 January 13, Allan Kozinn, “Interpreting the Beatles Without Copying”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     Tribute acts, by contrast, are purely recreative.

2. Creating anew.

   recreative power

• rec
• recreational

• recreatively
• recreativeness

recreative (plural recreatives)

1. (obsolete, rare) A recreative thing or activity.
   • 1615, Samuel Daniel, “The Prologue”, in Hymens Triumph. A Pastorall Tragicomædie. […], London: […] [John Legate] for Francis Constable, […], →OCLC, signature ¶3, recto:

     For, theſe are onely Cynthias recreatiues / Made vnto Phœbus, and are feminine; […]

   • 1620, “A Discourse of Rome”, in Horæ Subseciuæ. Observations and Discourses., London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Edward Blount, […], →OCLC, page 382:

     And in this kinde I knovv fevv recreatiues that poſſeſſe vs more, then the humour of building, in reſpectthey both ſatisfie our ovvne preſent inuention, and ſerue to our poſteritie, as perpetuall remembrances, and memorials of their progenitors, […]

     Attributed to William Cavendish, 2nd Earl of Devonshire. Sometimes also attributed to his brother Gilbert Cavendish; to Grey Brydges, 5th Baron Chandos; and to Thomas Hobbes.

   • 1853, an Epicure [pseudonym; Frederick Saunders], “The Talkative and the Taciturn”, in Salad for the Solitary, New York, N.Y.: Lamport, Blakeman & Law, […], →OCLC, page 44:

     Among the most delightful of mental recreatives may be classed the exhilarating pleasures of intellectual intercourse; they constitute the very life-fluid of our social being.