See Also: Representative(medicine)
REPRESENTATIVE(law)
representative(dictionary)
Sales representative(finance)
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY(law)
Personal Representative(law)
Domestic Representative(law)
sales representative(dictionary)
Registered Representative(money)
representative 1, adjective(dictionary)

representative (iou)



representative adjective & noun. LME.
[Old & mod. French representatif, -ive or medieval Latin repraesentativus, formed as REPRESENTATION: see -IVE.]
A. adjective.
a. Serving to represent, figure, portray, or symbolize. Also foll. by of. LME.
D. Waterland Not merely as representative of God..but as strictly and truly God. J. Barth This story..representative of..many features of my boyhood.
b. Presenting or able to present ideas to the mind. Also, (of art) representational. M18.
c. Relating to mental representation. M19.
a. Standing for or in place of another or others, esp. in a prominent or comprehensive manner. E17.
G. Burnet The Nation, of which the King was..the representative head.
b. spec. Acting on behalf of a larger body of people in governing or legislating; pertaining to or based on a system of representation by elected deputies. Also, consisting of such deputies. E17.
Encyclopedia Britannica An elected council representative of the..Igbirra clans.
Typical of a class or category; conveying an adequate idea or containing a typical specimen of others of the kind. L18.
Times Twelve competitors out of a representative international field qualified. S. Biko Who can be regarded as representative of black opinion? R. Dinnage An absolutely representative sample of people to be interviewed.
Taking the place of allied forms or species found elsewhere. M19.
Special collocations: representative fraction the ratio of a distance on a map to the distance it represents on the ground.
b. noun.
A person or thing representing a larger number or class; a sample, a specimen. Also, a typical embodiment of some quality or concept. M17.
R. W. Dale He [Christ] is the great Representative of our religious life. R. Lydekker The sole British representative of this Family is the..Mole.
A person who represents another or others in some special or particular capacity; spec. (a) a person who represents a section of the community as an elected member of a legislative body; (b) a person appointed to represent a monarch or government in another country; (c) an agent of a company or another person; (d) a delegate, a substitute; (e) a successor, an heir. M17.
Saturday Review The representatives of the press were deputising in the absence of their chiefs. G. F. Kennan The Soviet Government..had its own representative..in Berlin. Times Labour's elected representatives..mouth..capitalism. J. Raban He was the Gulf representative of a firm of electrical engineers in London.
A representative body or assembly. M17-M18.
A thing which symbolizes, stands for, or corresponds to some other thing. L18.
J. Priestley Money is only a..representative of the commodities..purchased with it.
Phrases: House of Representatives the lower or popular legislative house of the United States Congress; a similar legislative body in Australia or New Zealand. personal representative: see PERSONAL adjective.
representatively adverb LME.
representativeness noun M17.
,representa'tivity noun E20.