Word.ws English Dictionary

destructively

destructively adverb: in a destructive manner: in a way that causes destruction.

Adverb

destructively (comparative more destructively, superlative most destructively)

  1. in a destructive manner: in a way that causes destruction
    • In one locality, on our journey, we saw some horses that had been born and reared on top of the mountains, above the range of running water, and consequently they had never drank that fluid in their lives, but had been always accustomed to quenching their thirst by eating dew-laden or shower-wetted...1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC
    • The strength of man was not given to be used destructively but that he might build a temple worthy to be the dwelling place of the Great Architect of the universe.1923, Manly Palmer Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, Chapter 4

Examples of destructively in a sentence

  • And now it was destructively funny to see them sniff suspiciously at a pail of water, and then put in their noses and try to take a bite out of the fluid, as if it were a solid.1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et...
  • Though he intends it destructively, Rothbard is right that there are relations between the millennial hope for justice he archly calls KGE—Kingdom of God on Earth—and communism.2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:

Antonyms of destructively

Forms of destructively

comparativemore destructively
superlativemost destructively

Origin of destructively

From destructive + -ly.

Words formed from destructively

Questions about destructively

What does destructively mean?
Destructively means in a destructive manner: in a way that causes destruction.
How do you use destructively in a sentence?
And now it was destructively funny to see them sniff suspiciously at a pail of water, and then put in their noses and try to take a bite out of the fluid, as if it were a solid.
What part of speech is destructively?
Destructively is an adverb.

Words near destructively in the dictionary

  1. destructive distillations
  2. destructive interference
  3. destructive read
  4. destructive reads
  5. destructive sorites
  6. destructively
  7. destructiveness
  8. destructivism
  9. destructivist
  10. destructivists
  11. destructivities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: destructively (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: “destructively.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/destructively. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.