Productive

How to spell productive

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce productive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does productive mean?

1. adjectiveAchieving or producing a significant amount of useful results or output.

Productive in a sentence

• Clearing the inbox first made the whole morning more productive.

• The team had a remarkably productive week and shipped three features.

Where does productive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb producere, which literally meant 'to lead forward' or 'bring forth', built from the prefix pro- 'forward' and the verb ducere 'to lead'. The Latin past participle productus gave rise to the late Latin adjective productivus, describing something capable of bringing forth or yielding. English took it up in the early 1600s by way of French productif, at first in the sense of generating or giving rise to something. The same ducere root leads, fittingly, into a whole family of English words such as conduct, reduce, introduce and educate, all of which involve a kind of leading. Knowing that the middle is the duc 'lead' element, not a doubled letter, helps keep the single c and the -tive ending firmly in place.

How the word is built

• pro- (forward)
• duc (from ducere: to lead)
• -tive (adjective suffix)