From elect + -ive.

• IPA: /ɪˈlɛktɪv/

elective

1. Of, or pertaining to voting or elections; involving a choice between options.

   Synonyms: electoral

   Antonyms: appointive, hereditary

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Works of Virgil […] translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, dedicatory preface to the Marquess of Normanby,

     For his Conscience could not but whisper to the Arbitrary Monarch, that the Kings of Rome were at first Elective, and Govern’d not without a Senate:

   • 1896, Mahatma Gandhi, “The South African Question” in Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi, Madras: G.A. Natesan, 3rd edition, 1922, p. 6,

     [The bill] says that no natives of countries (not of European origin) which have not hitherto possessed elective representative institutions […] shall be placed on the voters roll […]

2. Open to choice; freely chosen; (also, usually) unnecessary; minor.

   Synonyms: discretionary, optional, voluntary

   Antonyms: compulsory, mandatory, obligatory, required, involuntary

   After accounting for all of my required courses, there is hardly any room in my schedule for any elective ones.

   • 1654, Thomas Hobbes, Of Libertie and Necessitie‎, London: F. Eaglesfield, pages 12–13:

     […] his Lordship is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it, differs from an action voluntary and elective, for even the setting of a mans foot, in the posture for walking, and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done, and though afterward it became easie & habitual so as to be done without fore-thought, yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceedeth from election.

   • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia (Burney novel), London: T. Payne & Son, and T. Cadell, Volume 5, Book 9, Chapter 8, pp. 160-161,

     “You know not then,” said Cecilia, in a faint voice, “my inability to comply?”

     “Your ability, or inability, I presume are elective?”

     “Oh no!—my power is lost!—my fortune itself is gone!”

   • 2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup‎, Toronto: Viking, page 23:

     [Her friends] are, after all, her elective siblings who have distanced themselves from the ways of the past, their families […]

   • 2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, chapter 38, in Americanah‎, New York: Knopf, page 346:

     “ […] That blog is a game that you don’t really take seriously, it’s like choosing an interesting elective evening class to complete your credits.”

   • 2019, Dave Eggers, The Parade, New York: Vintage, page 130:

     Now some adventuring imbecile had acquired an elective sickness and was paying its price.

3. (US health care system, technical) Scheduled and nonemergent (regardless of whether necessary or unnecessary and whether minor or serious).

   Antonyms: emergent, unscheduled

   It was very confusing hearing my cancer surgery being classified as "elective surgery". Am I "electing" to live rather than die?

• elect
• election

• Portuguese: eletivo
• Spanish: electivo

• French: facultatif
• German: elektiv, optional, wählend
• Spanish: electivo

elective (plural electives)

1. Something that is an option or may be freely chosen, especially a course of study.

   I still need to decide which electives to take along with my compulsory courses next semester.

• French: option