destructive

adj
/dɪˈstɹʌktɪv/UK/dɪˈstɹʊktɪv/

Etymology

From Middle English destructyve, from Middle French destructif, from Latin dēstrūctīvus, from past participle of dēstruere (“to tear down, destroy”) + -īvus.

  1. derived from dēstrūctīvus
  2. derived from destructif
  3. inherited from destructyve

Definitions

  1. Causing destruction

    Causing destruction; damaging.

    • The pastures are filled with gay political drop-outs, persons of reasonable intent who found the scene personally destructive.
  2. Causing breakdown or disassembly.

    • Catabolism is a destructive metabolism that involves the breakdown of molecules and release of energy.
  3. Lossy

    Lossy; causing irreversible change.

    • Blurring an image is a destructive operation, but rotating an image is not.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at destructive. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01destructive02lossy03power04influence05change06replace07restore08ruin09destruction

A definitional loop anchored at destructive. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at destructive

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA