| distributive adjective |
| Definition: An adjective — such as every or any — that qualifies members of a group separately instead of collectively. |
| Example:
Every good boy deserves ice-cream.
(The every is distributive. As opposed to all boys deserve ice-cream where all is not distributive.) |
| Oxford English Dictionary: The term's first citation is from 1824: "The distributive adjective pronouns, each, every, either, agree with the nouns … and verbs, of the singular number only." (L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 5) I. 247) |