productive
/pɹəˈdʌk.tɪv/
productive adjective: capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.
Adjective
productive (comparative more productive, superlative most productive)
- Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.
- Yielding good or useful results; constructive.
- Of, or relating to the creation of goods or services.
- Consistently applicable to any of an open set of words.
- Moreover, this relationship is a productive one, in the sense that when new Adjectives are created (e.g. ginormous concocted out of gigantic and enormous), then the corresponding Adverb form (in this case ginormously) can also be used. And in those exceptional cases where Adverbs do not end in -ly...1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 138
- In practice, a productive prefix yields many attested words (especially new coinages) without loss of meaning. For example, re- (“again”) is highly productive (rebuild, rethink), whereas other prefixes are relatively less so.2026 April, Olha Matviyas, Victoria Rokoshevs’ka, Yulia Leshchyshyn, “THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PREFIXES IN ENGLISH MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY”, in The Future of Science, Technology and Economy, archived from the...
- Of a cough, producing mucus or sputum from the respiratory tract.
- Of inflammation, producing new tissue.
- A type of set of natural numbers, related to mathematical logic; a set S is productive if there exists a total recursive function f such that ∀x∈ℕ,~~W_x⊆S⇒f(x)∈A⧵W_x, where W_x is a recursive function whose Gödel number is x.
- a productive set
productive meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
productive in Hindi
- उत्पादनशील
productive in Tamil
- ஆக்கவளமுடைய, செழிப்பான, அமைக்கும், ஆக்கும், விளைவிக்கும்
productive in Marathi
- उत्पादनक्षम
productive in Urdu
- سیر حاصل, زرخیز
More languagesFewer languages
- productive in Bengali
- ফলদায়ক, উত্পাদনক্ষম, কার্যক্ষম, উত্পাদনী
- productive in Malayalam
- ഉത്പാദകമായ utpādakamāya
- productive in Kannada
- ಫಲದಾಯಕ, ಲಾಭದಾಯಕ, ಅಧಿಕ ಉತ್ಪಾದನೆಯ ಸಾಮರ್ಥ್ಯವುಳ್ಳ, ತಯಾರಿಸಬಲ್ಲ
- productive in Punjabi
- ਪ੍ਰੋਡਕਟਿਵ
- productive in Gujarati
- ઉત્પાદનક્ષમ
- productive in Odia
- ଉତ୍ପାଦନକ୍ଷମ, ଉତ୍ପାଦନଶୀଳ
- productive in Nepali
- उत्पादनशील
- productive in Tagalog
- malalangin
- productive in Vietnamese
- năng sản
Examples of productive in a sentence
- Semiskilled workers are cheaper than skilled workers but more productive than unskilled drudges.
- Potholes or sloughs formed by a glacier’s retreat from the central plains of North America, are now known to be some of the world’s most productive ecosystems.
- These are days where you have no obligations, where you do not worry about being productive.
Synonyms of productive
Antonyms
- baneful
- barren
- counterproductive
- counter-productive
- destructive
- nonproductive
- non-productive
- ruinous
- unproductive
- fruitless
1 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of productive
| comparative | more productive |
|---|---|
| superlative | most productive |
Origin of productive
Borrowed from Late Latin productivus, equivalent to product + -ive.
Words formed from productive
Phrases with productive
Words that rhyme with productive
Questions about productive
- What does productive mean?
- Productive means capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.
- What is productive in Hindi?
- Productive in Hindi is उत्पादनशील. See Productive meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is productive?
- Productive is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce productive?
- Productive is pronounced /pɹəˈdʌk.tɪv/.
Words near productive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: productive (page history and authors); productive (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); productive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); productive (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); productive (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); productive (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); productive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); productive (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); productive (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); productive (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); productive (Nepali, 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-productive.wav.
Cite this entry: “productive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/productive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
