selective
- 1Careful and particular in choosing, accepting only some things while rejecting others.
Like a club that turns most people away at the door and admits only a few.
The gallery is highly selective, showing only a fraction of the artists who apply.
Recruiters became more selective once hundreds of applications poured in.
Similardiscriminating, discerning, particular, choosy, exclusive
Oppositeindiscriminate, unselective, inclusive
Note
This is the gradable sense of the word, the one that takes very, highly and more: a very selective shopper, a highly selective gallery. It began as a description of people, but institutions now wear it just as easily. Choosy and fussy sit close by, while selective sounds more measured, as if the narrowing were deliberate rather than a matter of temper.
- 2Relating to the process of choosing or picking out particular things from a larger group.
The selective phase of recruitment evaluates each candidate against strict criteria.
Admissions officers described the selective procedure used to rank thousands of applicants.
- 3Possessing the authority or ability to carry out a selection of people or things.
During the war, his local Selective Service board decided which men from the county would be drafted.
Congress gave the Selective Service the power to choose which registered men would be called up first.
Note
Mainly American, and today heard chiefly in the name of the Selective Service, the body that runs military conscription in the United States. The word names who holds the power to choose, not how carefully they use it. That is why it takes no comparative: no board is "more selective" in this sense. Picky choosers belong to the choosy meaning.
- 4Relating to natural selection: the tendency of organisms better adapted to their environment to survive and reproduce.
Drought created a strong selective advantage for plants with deeper roots.
Biologists tracked the selective forces shaping beak size across generations of finches.
Note
A biologist's word that almost always travels with a noun of force or gain: selective pressure, selective advantage, selective forces. Nobody does the choosing here. The environment simply lets some variants leave more offspring than others, and the adjective names that sorting. Keep it apart from the choosy meaning: a selective pressure is not picky, only relentless.
- 5Relating to the social-work approach of targeting benefits or services at those who meet specific need-based criteria rather than at everyone.
The council adopted a selective approach, offering grants only to households below the income threshold.
Critics argued the selective scheme excluded many families sitting just above the cutoff.
Similartargeted, means-tested
Oppositeuniversal
Note
Social policy uses it for help that is targeted rather than handed to everyone. Francis J. Turner's Encyclopedia of Canadian Social Work (2006) puts eligibility criteria at the heart of selective programs, with applicants judged by a means test. Its natural partners are programs, schemes and benefits, and its natural opposite in this field is universal provision, open to all whatever their circumstances.
Practice
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