productive

adjective

USpruh-DUK-tiv/pɹəˈdʌk.tɪv/

7 meanings of productive

1
adjective
Bringing good, useful results from the time or effort you put in.
Like a day when you finish everything on your to-do list.
We had a productive meeting and solved three problems.
Spending time outdoors made her whole afternoon feel productive.
Similarfruitful, constructive, useful, worthwhile, valuable
Oppositeunproductive, fruitless, futile, useless
2
adjective
Able to make or grow a lot of something.
Like a fruit tree that gives baskets of apples every year.
This soil is very productive, so crops grow well here.
The farm stayed productive for many years.
Similarfertile, fruitful, rich, prolific, abundant
Oppositebarren, infertile, unproductive
3
adjective
Having to do with making goods or providing services.
Like the parts of a business that actually build things, not just count the money.
Factories are part of the productive side of the economy.
Productive work makes the goods that people buy.
4
adjective
Describing a cough that brings up mucus from the lungs or airways.
Like a cough that pushes the mucus out instead of staying dry.
The doctor said his productive cough was a sign the infection was clearing.
A productive cough brings up thick mucus.
Similarwet
Oppositedry, nonproductive
Note
5
adjective
Able to be added to many words to make new ones.
Like a building block you can add to many words to make new ones.
The ending '-ness' is productive, so we can make new words like 'greenness'.
Some word parts are productive and others are not.
Oppositeunproductive
Note
6
adjective
Describing inflammation that makes new tissue grow as the body heals.
Like a wound that fills in with new skin as it heals.
Productive inflammation builds up new tissue as the body heals.
The doctor described it as productive inflammation, with fresh tissue forming.
Note
7
adjective
In math, a kind of number set that no single rule can fully list.
Like a list that always has one more item no one has written down.
The set of true statements that no program can list is productive.
Mathematicians proved that this collection of numbers is productive.
Note

Practice

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Origin

From Late Latin "productivus," made from "product" plus "-ive."