productive
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed from Late Latin productivus.
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
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.
- (linguistics, of an affix or word construction rule) Consistently applicable to any of an open set of words.
- 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 138:
- 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, they generally have the same form as the corresponding Adjective, as with hard, fast, etc.
- (medicine) Of a cough, producing mucus or sputum from the respiratory tract.
- (medicine) Of inflammation, producing new tissue.
- (set theory) A type of set of natural numbers, related to mathematical logic.
- a productive set
Usage notesEdit
In English, the plural suffix “-es” is productive because it can be appended to an open set of words (singular nouns ending in sibilants). Thus, if a new word with that pattern becomes an English noun (e.g. *examplex), it would have a default plural (e.g. *examplexes) because “-es” is productive.
SynonymsEdit
- See also Thesaurus:productive
AntonymsEdit
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
capable of producing something
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yielding good or useful results; constructive
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of, or relating to the creation of goods or services
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linguistics: consistently applicable to any of an open set of words
medicine: producing new tissue
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in set theory
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
ReferencesEdit
- productive in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
- productive in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
FrenchEdit
AdjectiveEdit
productive
LatinEdit
PronunciationEdit
- (Classical) IPA(key): /proː.dukˈtiː.u̯e/, [proːd̪ʊkˈt̪iːu̯ɛ]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /pro.dukˈti.ve/, [prod̪ukˈt̪iːve]
AdjectiveEdit
prōductīve