Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty; anticipatory: proactive steps to prevent terrorism.
Wiktionary
- adj. Acting in advance to deal with an expected change or difficulty
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (of a policy or person or action) controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than waiting to respond to it after it happens
- adj. descriptive of any event or stimulus or process that has an effect on events or stimuli or processes that occur subsequently
Etymologies
- pro- + active; originally coined 1933 by Paul Whiteley and Gerald Blankfort in a psychology paper, used in technical sense. Used in a popular context and sense (courage, perseverance) in 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning by neuropsychiatrist Viktor Emil Frankl, in the context of dealing with the Holocaust, as contrast with reactive. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“So her campaign has been trying what it calls a proactive effort to fix problems with committee reports it filed with the State Board of Elections, performing a voluntary audit of her campaign finances and forfeiting donations that had a whiff of potential illegality.”
“So her campaign has been trying what it calls a proactive effort to fix problems with committee reports it filed with the State Board of Elections, performing a yearlong voluntary audit of her campaign finances and forfeiting donations that had a whiff of potential illegality.”
“Cayman Airways has introduced what it describes as a proactive operational cost-saving measure to help keep airfares as low as possible for customers.”
“This characterization of Vitter being "proactive" is reminiscent of the initial reports when Vitter first disclosed his links to the D.C. Madam.”
“This sort of content, the sort that helps people to be proactive, is rare but necessary.”
“Apparently the word proactive to Dennis Hastert means wait eleven months then act as soon as you are caught by the media.www. john06.com”
“They have presented a declaration of 12,000 pages that did not provide any new evidence, and they need to be active, not to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the word proactive, in order to convince the Security Council through us that they do not have any more weapons of mass destruction, or else if they are there, that they deliver them so that they can be destroyed under our supervision.”
“Det Supt Essie Adair, the officer in charge of the operation, said: "This has been a successful overt stage of a long-term proactive investigation involving the PSNI and partner agencies against an organised crime gang which we believe was importing drugs into Northern Ireland.”
“This has been a successful overt stage of a long-term proactive investigation involving the PSNI and partner agencies against an organised crime gang which we believe was importing drugs into Northern Ireland.”
“You may have what researchers call proactive interference, where old information gets in the way of the new.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘proactive’.
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Words starting with PRO
I've noticed many, many words start with PRO and this is just a collection of them.
professional, pronunciation, Prolagus, probable, prog, proximity, profit, procrastincate, prom, pronoun, promise, proactive and 206 more...
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The Buzz
The bang, the cannonade,
the bale, the hum.lab situation, media, startup, scientific, gameplay, social, intuitive, creative, collaborative, funding, non-governmental ..., consultant and 124 more...
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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1076 more...
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EMPL - Globalisation Fund
adjusting agricul..., affected farmers, aid for business ..., aid for self-empl..., collective agreement, compensate for pr..., complementarity, crisis derogation, crisis intervention, EGF, eligible actions, employment contract and 80 more...
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Minions Wanted
Are you a proactive self-starter looking for an exciting new career? Do you like to travel to faraway islands and underground caverns? Can you follow orders without asking too many questions? Are y...
a mind that's wea..., loyal, expendable, proactive, self-starter, cheap, capable of follow..., no nosy relatives..., discreet, fully immunized, able to lift 25 kg, questionable morals and 8 more...
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voidwords
Any word or phrase considered to be a voidword or vacuism (i.e. virtually meaningless in general useage).
sustainable devel..., carbon neutral, empowerment, facilitate, proactive, globalisation, new, progressive, compassionate con..., modernism, postmodernism, inappropriate and 5 more...
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National Library Agenda Summit
nla2006, summit, agenda, library, ala, diversity, education, learning, continuous, scan, environmental, plan and 646 more...
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I do not like them, Sam I Am
Words that, for various reasons, I wish we could do without.
copacetic, gamut, horehound, lewd, membrane, metrics, mucous, mucus, negligee, nostril, odious, odor and 143 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Tamara's Words
ennui, je ne sais quoi, libertine, dilettante, raconteur, awry, nerdy, ridiculousness, cinnamon, snarky, somnambulist, truthiness and 101 more...
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Supernumerary
words used excessively to the point you want to wad up a piece of paper and throw it at the person saying it
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BINGO!
Entries from the corporate hall of shame. (There are many wordie versions of this list - please link to yours in the comments section - thanks!)
to architect, to incentivize, drill down, loop back, low-hanging fruit, pre-plan, customer-focused, best of brand, conversate, think outside the..., paradigm shift, going forward and 99 more...
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List.001
New word list
imperative, republic, subtle, Androgynous, licentious, auspices, avengeance, cabal, sibilant, Entropy, caduceus, ludicrous, and 170 more...
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vivek's list
flibbertigibbet, droll, reticence, prelude, erinaceous, brinkmanship, depone, inaniloquent, limerance, pronk, onomatopoeia, oxymoron and 385 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for proactive.
andrew.simone It is the most hateful of words. Dec 6, 2006