beschreibende

Beschreibende is the present participle of the verb beschreiben in German, used as an adjective meaning descriptive or describing. As an attributive adjective it declines like a normal German adjective and can appear in masculine, feminine, neuter singular, or plural forms, for example: der beschreibende Bericht, die beschreibende Liste, das beschreibende Buch, die beschreibenden Berichte.

In usage, beschreibende describes language, data, or phenomena in a way that reports how they appear or function, without making normative judgments. It is common in contexts such as linguistics, statistics, and literary analysis. Examples include beschreibende Grammatik (descriptive grammar), beschreibende Statistik (descriptive statistics), and beschreibender Text (a descriptive text). The term emphasizes observation and documentation rather than evaluation or instruction.

Relation to related terms: in technical fields, the more established adjective is deskriptiv or deskriptive (deskriptive Statistik, deskriptive Grammatik). Nonetheless, beschreibende remains widely understood and is used particularly in general or non-technical writing. In linguistic work, the contrast is often drawn between descriptive (beschreibende/deskriptive) approaches that document language as it is used and prescriptive (normative) approaches that prescribe rules.

Etymology and scope: beschreiben means to describe, and the suffix -ende marks the participle form used as an adjective. The term therefore reflects a commitment to description and documentation, rather than prescription or explanation.