productive
/prəˈdʌktɪv
/adjective
1Producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities: the most productive employees...
- In today's tight labor markets, both public and private employers will presumably benefit from being able to keep productive older employees on the job longer.
- Deforestation and overgrazing destroy productive land, while acid rain damages crops.
- The World Wildlife Fund has released a report that assesses our ecological footprint, or the amount of productive land and sea needed to sustain current lifestyles.
Synonyms
fertile, fruitful, rich, fecund, high-yielding
1.1Relating to or engaged in the production of goods, crops, or other commodities: the country’s productive capacity...
- Investment in productive capacity was the prominent transmission mechanism of finance to the real economy.
- Socialism has a comparative advantage in the area of productive efficiency.
- While they generate a return, financial assets are not themselves productive capital engaged in the actual extraction of surplus value from the working class.
1.2Achieving a significant amount or result: a long and productive career the therapy sessions became more productive...
- Freelancing, even after a highly successful and productive career, was not much better unless one was a ‘celebrity’ writer and columnist.
- This unlikely though productive pairing has resulted in what's being touted as Montreal's best outdoor skate park.
- Moral is low, egos are high and as a result it's not productive for the common good of the whole community.
Synonyms
prolific, inventive, creative;
dynamic, energetic, vigorous, effective
useful, constructive, profitable, fruitful, gainful, valuable, effective, worthwhile, beneficial, helpful, rewarding, gratifying
1.3 [predicative] (productive of) Producing or giving rise to: the hotel was not productive of amusing company...
- Four days prior to admission, she developed a cough productive of whitish sputum.
- As has been indicated, life on the frontier is productive of individualism.
- Mines in the Pangaeum mountain range were extremely productive of silver and gold.
1.4 Linguistics (Of a prefix, suffix, or other linguistic unit) currently used in forming new words or expressions: many suffixes are common and productive...
- It takes a higher degree of competence, they say, to combine words properly in productive use.
- So, Eskimoan languages are really extraordinary in their productive word-building capability, for any root you might pick.
- The situation characterizes the less productive affixes, such as noun-forming ity or th.
2 Medicine (Of a cough) that raises mucus from the respiratory tract.He had a sick contact with an upper respiratory infection and productive cough for the past two weeks....
- A 55 year old man presented to his general practitioner with a productive cough.
- Signs of recurrent infection or pneumonia with productive cough, fever, and hemoptysis dominate.
Derivatives
productiveness
- But for many Americans he is proof that age is just a number - not a definitive measurement of one's abilities or productiveness.
- Get off the sofa and do anything to get on the road to productiveness.
- The path to this evening's productiveness started this lunch time, when I bought a printer.
Origin
Early 17th century: from French productif, -ive or late Latin productivus, from product- 'brought forth', from the verb producere (see produce).