Word.ws English Dictionary

manipulative

Syllables: ma·nip·u·la·tive/məˈnɪp.jə.lə.tɪv/US/məˈnɪp.jə.leɪ.tɪv/

manipulative adjective: using manipulation purposefully.

Adjective

manipulative (comparative more manipulative, superlative most manipulative)

  1. Using manipulation purposefully.
    • As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.2012 January, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 03 Oct 2013, page 31
  2. Tending to manipulate.
  3. (derogatory) Reaching one's goals at the expense of other people by using them.
    • You manipulative bitch!

Noun

manipulative (plural manipulatives)

  1. A manipulable object designed to demonstrate a mathematical concept.
    • Some children need manipulatives to learn math basics, Dr. Clements said, but only as a starting point.2008 April 25, Kenneth Chang, “Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices”, in New York Times

manipulative meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati

manipulative in Urdu

ہیرا پھیری والا

manipulative in Bengali

ম্যানিপুলেটিভ

manipulative in Malayalam

cunning, scheming, calculating
കൗശലപ്രയോഗമുള്ള, കൃത്രിമപ്പണി പ്രയോഗിച്ചുള്ള, കൗശലം കാണിക്കുന്ന, സൂത്രക്കാരനായ, കുയുക്തിയുള്ള, കൗശലബുദ്ധിയുള്ള

manipulative in Gujarati

ચાલાકીભર્યું, ચાલાકીભર્યા

Examples of manipulative in a sentence

  • The magus is manipulative, mendacious, a master of illusions and mind games.
  • But police said he was arrogant and manipulative, while Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah was weak-minded and gullible.
  • Don’t let manipulative state legislators misrepresent science and fearmonger you into giving them money.

All 21 example sentences with manipulative

Synonyms of manipulative

Forms of manipulative

Adjective
comparativemore manipulative
superlativemost manipulative
Noun
pluralmanipulatives

Origin of manipulative

From manipulate + -ive.

Words formed from manipulative

Questions about manipulative

What does manipulative mean?
Manipulative means using manipulation purposefully.
What is manipulative in Urdu?
Manipulative in Urdu is ہیرا پھیری والا. See Manipulative meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is manipulative?
Manipulative can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce manipulative?
Manipulative is pronounced /məˈnɪp.jə.lə.tɪv/ (UK).

Words near manipulative in the dictionary

  1. manipulatible
  2. manipulating
  3. manipulation
  4. manipulational
  5. manipulations
  6. manipulative
  7. manipulatively
  8. manipulativeness
  9. manipulatives
  10. manipulator
  11. manipulators

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: manipulative (page history and authors); manipulative (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); manipulative (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); manipulative (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); manipulative (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-manipulative.wav.

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