adjective
- relating to or establishing a norm or standard
- expressing or implying what ought to be done rather than what is actually done
Usage: philosophy; ethics
Examples
- The company established normative guidelines for employee behavior.
- Normative ethics deals with questions of right and wrong.
- The study took a normative approach to analyzing social behavior.
- Her research focused on normative rather than descriptive aspects of language.
- The policy includes normative statements about environmental protection.
- Normative theories suggest how things should be, not how they are.