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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

destructive.

Causing destruction; damaging.

11 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/dɪˈstɹʌktɪv/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɪˈstɹʊktɪv/Ireland, Northern-England/dɪˈstɹɐktɪv/Australia/dəˈstɹɐktəv/New-Zealand
  1. Causing destruction; damaging.

  2. Causing breakdown or disassembly.

    Catabolism is a destructive metabolism that involves the breakdown of molecules and release of energy.
  3. Lossy; causing irreversible change.

    Blurring an image is a destructive operation, but rotating an image is not.
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.