Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Causing or wreaking destruction; ruinous.
  • adjective Designed or tending to disprove or discredit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Causing destruction; having a tendency to destroy or the quality of destroying; ruinous; mischievous; pernicious; hurtful: with of or to before an object: as, a destructive fire; a destructive disposition; intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth.
  • In logic, refuting; disproving: as, a destructive dilemma.
  • noun One who or that which destroys; one who favors the destruction of anything for some ulterior purpose, as progress or public convenience; an overthrower of existing institutions, customs, or the like.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to
  • adjective See Distillation.
  • adjective (Logic) a process of reasoning which involves the denial of the first of a series of dependent propositions as a consequence of the denial of the last; a species of reductio ad absurdum.
  • noun One who destroys; a radical reformer; a destructionist.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Causing destruction; damaging.
  • adjective Causing break down or disassembly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective causing destruction or much damage

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin destructivus, from past participle of destruere ("to tear down, destroy") + -ivus

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word destructive.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.