Word.ws English Dictionary

counter-productive

counter-productive is the alternative spelling of counterproductive.

Meaning of counterproductive

Adjective

counterproductive (comparative more counterproductive, superlative most counterproductive)

  1. More of a hindrance than a help.
    • The curse has been Spanish ineptitude feeding Gibraltarian intransigence. Border hold-ups are counterproductive to winning hearts and minds, as were blundering Argentinian landings on the outer Falklands.2013 August 14, Simon Jenkins, “Gibraltar and the Falklands deny the logic of history”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2021

Forms of counter-productive

comparativemore counter-productive
superlativemost counter-productive

Origin of counter-productive

From counter- + productive.

Questions about counter-productive

What is counter-productive the alternative spelling of?
Counter-productive is the alternative spelling of counterproductive.

Words near counter-productive in the dictionary

  1. counter-passwords
  2. counter-payment
  3. counter-payments
  4. counter-potent
  5. counter-potenty
  6. counter-productive
  7. counter-proposal
  8. counter-proposals
  9. counter-punch
  10. counter-punches
  11. counter-quartered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: counter-productive (page history and authors); counterproductive (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “counter-productive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/counter-productive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.