corrective

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or pertaining to correction; serving to correct.

   “As the currents were changing rapidly, the captain had to make many corrective course changes.”

   “Since the accident I've had to wear a corrective brace.”

   “Alway remember, that yf any other humour do abounde in the choleryke persone, as fleume, or melancolye, than vntyll that humour be expelled, the diete must be correctiue of that humour, and therfore more hotte and fyne, than the natural dyete before rehersed:”

   “The Justice that relates to Men, is either Universal, which gives us the Character of Good Men; or particular, and this is either Distributive or Corrective Justice. […] To corrective Justice belongs the punishment of Crimes.”

   “In the finished pieces of his youth, when he [John Milton] had a critical eye at every hour on every page, we find no want of corrective touches.”

2. (not-comparable, obsolete)Qualifying; limiting.

   “The Psalmist interposeth a caution in this corrective particle, Yea, Happy. It hath the force of a revocation, whereby he seems to retract what went before, not simply and absolutely, but in a certain degree […]”

noun

1. Something that corrects or counteracts something.

   “alkalies are correctives of acids”

   “penalties are correctives of immoral conduct”

   “[…] To make Courts hot ambitions wholesome, do not take A dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not adde Correctives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.”

   “The materials for the foreign settlements are far from being as perfect, or as much to be depended upon as we could wish; it was very seldom that I could venture to transcribe any thing directly from them without some addition or some corrective.”

2. (obsolete)Limitation; restriction.

   “What Correctives there may be supposed that may check and restrain that Increase of Mankind, that otherwise according to the ordinary course of Nature would have obtained in the World.”

   “It is a maxim established upon good reason, that every thing exceeding its just bounds, is hurtful to nature. The best of things are not excepted in this general rule. Even the necessary supports of life, if not qualified and made wholesome by this corrective, may prove the procurers of death.”