Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use productive in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective

Productive means capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile. Example: “Semiskilled workers are cheaper than skilled workers but more productive than unskilled drudges.”

Examples of productive by meaning

adjectiveConsistently 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.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.2026 April, Olha Matviyas, Victoria Rokoshevs’ka, Yulia Leshchyshyn, “THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PREFIXES IN ENGLISH MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY”, in The...

adjectiveA type of set of natural numbers, related to mathematical logic; a set S is productive if there exists a total...

  • a productive set

More sentences with productive

  • Semiskilled workers are cheaper than skilled workers but more productive than unskilled drudges.From the entry semiskilled
  • 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.From the entry slough
  • These are days where you have no obligations, where you do not worry about being productive.2024 July 14, Christine Lehnen, “Why everyone should have ‘zero days’ and do the worst job first”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry zero-day
  • Madou is flat with gentle topography and productive lands located in the heartland of Tainan City.2022 July 28, “Summary of Madou District”, in Madou District Office, Tainan City, archived from the original on 03 Aug 2022. From the entry Cyuanjhou
  • The only downfall of StudyTube is that it can lead to what feels like productive procrastination.2019 October 8, Ellie Robson, “The great rise of ‘studytube’”, in Concrete, number 367, University of East Anglia, page 11. From the entry StudyTube
  • One way to reduce the environmental impact of meat eating is to make livestock more productive.2016, Jayson Lusk, Unnaturally Delicious, →ISBN, page 111. From the entry impact
  • "Mechanisation, science, and technology have centupled the productive potential of human labour."2015, Errico Malatesta, Carl Levy, Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta. From the entry centuple
  • In its pure form, this ideal embraced the virtues of a productive, humble, and obedient adulthood.2015, Dr. Bill Thomas, William H. Thomas, Second Wind, page 51. From the entry Orthogonian
  • Film and dance theory offer a productive vocabulary for considering the effects of these mutings and deafenings.2012, Gary Taylor, Trish Thomas Henley, The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton, page 338. From the entry deafening
  • You will have fewer 'Unreads' staring at you from your Inbox, and will feel—and be—more productive.2011, Hugh D. Culver, Give Me a Break: The Art of Making Time Work for You, page 129. From the entry unread
  • Low-cost financing, access to venture capital, expanding shopsteading programs, and providing fee waivers are some productive approaches.2010, Carol O'Cleireacain, The Orphaned Capital, →ISBN. From the entry shopsteading
  • Carangids may use DMSP as a cue to locate productive areas for foraging.2008, Jennifer Leigh DeBose, Investigating the Role of Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) as an Aggregation Cue for Coral Reef and…. From the entry carangid
  • Without all of the "food noise" in your head, you'll find you are much more productive.2007, Joy Bauer, Prevention's 3-2-1 Weight Loss Plan: Eat Your Favorite Foods to Cut Cravings, Improve Energy, and Lose Weight, Rodale…. From the entry food noise
  • Biosedimentation processes are more intensive in biologically productive zones (in particular coastal and shelf regions).2001, L. Erdman, A. Gusev, N. Pavlova, MAP Technical Report Series No. 130: Atmospheric Input of Persistent Organic Pollutants to the…. From the entry biosedimentation
  • This inside is the productive cooperation of mass intellectuality and affective networks, the productivity of postmodern biopolitics.2000, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, →OCLC, page 413. From the entry biopolitics
  • Furthermore, περ is productive in the Italiot texts, presumably as a learnedism rather than a popular survival.1998 July 15, Nick Nicholas, “το ανερ and ο οποιοs: Untangling Medieval Greek Relativisation”, in Themes in Greek Linguistics, volume II…. From the entry learnedism
  • Coffee and Chatter? the Hope is for a productive, when not amusing, Hour.1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 33, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 327. From the entry early riser
  • Lack of water, fertile land, productive mines, and heavy industry made it an unlikely candidate.1995, Eugene P. Moehring, Resort City in the Sunbelt: Las Vegas, 1930–1970, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 13. From the entry sunbelt
  • Hitting a thin shot from a fairway bunker is more productive than hitting a fat shot.1992, DeDe Owens, Linda K. Bunker, Advanced Golf: Steps to Success, page 81. From the entry fat
  • Thanks to Kim, her husband is also living a sober, productive life.1987, Engage/Social Action, volume 15, page 33. From the entry bottom-line
  • Or the so-called well-adjusted, productive businessman, and so forth, who is clinically sane by the same standards?1985, Walker Percy, Lewis A. Lawson, Victor A. Kramer, Conversations with Walker Percy, page 111. From the entry bad off
  • So with many other chores, for cooperative patterns of work form an integral part of productive organization.1983, Steven Hahn, “Bounds of Custom”, in The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry…. From the entry logrolling
  • Independence in itself is not bad if it can be controlled and made to be productive.1962, Research Management, page 401. From the entry lone wolfer
  • Out in California's incredibly productive Inland Valley, there's a whole marketful of people with billions to spend.1959, Printers' Ink - Volume 269, page 2. From the entry marketful
  • Plant upright spreading hardy, vigorous and productive; berry, oblong, round, medium size, sweet but rather ideipid.1902, A. W. Peart, “Blackberries: Notes by A. W. Peart”, in Annual Report, page 41. From the entry oblong
  • It’s not the right strain for partying and being productive.2025 September 3, Veronica Booth, “Paradise Found… With This THCa Vape in Your Pocket”, in Vice, United States, archived from the original…. From the entry Garden of Weeden
  • We came to the table in good faith and, following productive negotiations, we are able to end the overtime ban.2023 June 28, Mel Holley, “Network News: "In this for the long haul": mandate for further strikes”, in RAIL, number 986, page 17. From the entry overtime ban
  • A healthy person is a more productive person," says Prosser.2023 November 15, Ian Prosser talks to Stefanie Foster, “A healthy person is a more productive person”, in RAIL, number 996, page 35. From the entry ill-health
  • I was productive, but I was dead inside.2021 January 1, Emily St. James, “The Lost Year: A quiet year, alone in one's head”, in Vox, archived from the original on 23 Jun 2023. From the entry dead inside
  • From that point on, my Pinteresting was no longer productive.2016, Miranda Talley Reagan, STEM-Infusing the Elementary Classroom, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 5. From the entry Pinterest
  • In fact, just as his master Chaucer did before him, Milburn “falsened” his material in some productive ways.2014, Peter G. Beidler, The Lives of the Miller's Tale, page 155. From the entry falsen
  • I've listed sample habits to demonstrate how you might sub out an unproductive one with a productive one.2013, Karen Elizaga, Find Your Sweet Spot, page 87. From the entry sub out
  • Generally they are no longer productive, and cannot be used for derivation either in Classical Tagalog or Classical Arabic.2013, Jean-Paul G. Potet, Arabic and Persian Loanwords in Tagalog, Lulu Press, →ISBN, pages 82–83. From the entry Classical Tagalog
  • The current record of Australian Lower Cretaceous non-marine macroinvertebrates is substantial but mainly limited to a few highly productive localities.2011, Benjamin P. Kear, Robert J. Hamilton-Bruce, “Non-marine invertebrates”, in Dinosaurs in Australia: Mesozoic Life from the Southern…. From the entry unionoid
  • Though neither seems like an overly productive activity, for our language's sake we need more procrastibaking and less LOLing.18 May 2011, Julian Fernando, “Little gain in lazy English mangling”, in The Age. From the entry procrastibaking
  • Instead of investing in a so-called productive activity or covering a family expense, clients onlend to their entourage, often with interest.2011, Armendariz Beatriz, Labie Marc, The Handbook Of Microfinance, →ISBN, page 112. From the entry onlend
  • From an ideological perspective, rural productive life was glorified, while the urban luftgeschaeft, non-productive livelihoods such as commerce, was constantly criticized.2011, Hizky Shoham, “Of Other Cinematic Spaces: Urban Zionism in Early Hebrew Cinema”, in Israel Studies Review, page 131. From the entry luftgeschaeft

Meaning of productive

  1. adjective Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.
  2. adjective Yielding good or useful results; constructive.
  3. adjective Of, or relating to the creation of goods or services.

Full definition of productive

Questions about productive in a sentence

How do you use productive in a sentence?
Productive is used as an adjective. For example: “Semiskilled workers are cheaper than skilled workers but more productive than unskilled drudges.”
What is a short sentence with productive?
“a productive set”
What does productive mean?
Productive means capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: productive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use productive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/productive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.