contrastive adj 1: of words so related that one contrasts with the other; "`rich' and `hard-up' are contrastive terms" [syn: {incompatible}] 2: strikingly different; tending to contrast; "contrasting (or contrastive) colors" [syn: {contrasting}] 3: syntactically establishing a relationship of contrast between sentences or elements of a sentence; "disjunctive conjunctions like `but', `or', or `though' serve a contrastive function"