From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishselectivese‧lec‧tive /səˈlektɪv/ ●○○ AWL adjective 1 CHOOSEcareful about what you choose to do, buy, allow etc → non-selectiveselective about/in We’re very selective about what we let the children watch. selective schools (=that choose which students to accept) He has a very selective memory (=he chooses what he wants to remember and what to forget).2 BESTaffecting or relating to the best or most suitable people or things from a larger group selective breeding —selectively adverb —selectivity /səˌlekˈtɪvəti/ noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
selective• The unit we offered was very brief, and, of necessity, highly selective.• People are becoming more and more selective about the food they eat these days.• All colleges were selective at the time.• It is inevitably highly selective, both in the Acts it covers and in what it includes from each Act.• the selective breeding of horses• Those conditions drew selective buying of defensive stocks.• By 1980 no detail of animal courtship mattered unless it could be explained in terms of the selective competition of genes.• Do they signal selective enforcement against minorities?• We also learned to be selective, that too many unusual pieces defeat the impact of individuality.• A project to develop a new production process requires a similar selective use of the concept.• You've got to be very selective when choosing a roommate.selective about/in• The three theories are also selective in another way, in the concepts that they choose to prioritize over others.• Sales may also be lost because the aggressive firm is more selective in granting credit than its competitors.• The managers reported that firing a subordinate taught them to be even more selective in hiring.• One consequence of this lumpiness is that caffeine is far more selective in its actions than is alcohol.• This is another area where human memory tends to be selective in the absence of such records.• They seemed to be selective in the evidence that they quoted.• Yes, I was selective in the midst of bounty, grasping, even, at who or what I loved most.• The whole idea behind it was to keep it really small and be really selective about who you work with. 