instructive

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English instruct

Proto-Indo-European *-wós

Proto-Indo-European *-iHwósder.

Latin -īvus

Old French -ifbor.

Middle English -yf

English -ive

English instructive

From instruct + -ive.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈstɹʌktɪv/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

instructive (comparative more instructive, superlative most instructive)

1. Conveying knowledge, information or instruction.

   Synonyms: didactic, educative, informative, informatory

   Well, that was an instructive lesson.

   • 2021 January 29, John Herrman, “Everything’s a Joke Until It’s Not”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 11 September 2025:

     Some commentators have suggested that the activity represented by WallStreetBets and Trumpism are part of the same populist, anti-elite phenomenon, but if Trumpism in general is instructive at all here, it’s as a reminder that self-described anti-elite movements can, in fact, turn out to be much more complicated than that.

Derived terms

• bioinstructive
• instructive case
• instructively
• instructiveness
• misinstructive
• noninstructive
• preinstructive
• uninstructive

Translations

Conveying knowledge, information or instruction — see also informative

• Bulgarian: инструктивен (bg) (instruktiven), поучителен (bg) (poučitelen)
• Catalan: instructiu (ca)
• Dutch: instructief (nl), leerrijk (nl), leerzaam (nl)
• Finnish: opettava (fi), opettavainen (fi)
• French: instructif (fr)
• German: lehrreich (de), aufschlussreich (de), belehrend (de)
• Hindi: शिक्षाप्रद (hi) (śikṣāprad)
• Hungarian: tanulságos (hu)
• Italian: istruttivo (it), instruttivo (it)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: lærerik

  Nynorsk: lærerik

• Russian: поучи́тельный (ru) (poučítelʹnyj)
• Spanish: instructivo (es), aleccionador (es)
• Ukrainian: повча́льний (povčálʹnyj)

Noun

instructive (plural instructives)

1. (linguistics) A case in the Finnish and Estonian languages. It expresses the means or the instrument used to perform an action.

Translations

Case expressing means or instrument used to perform an action

• Czech: instruktiv m
• Estonian: viisiütlev (et), instruktiiv (et)
• Finnish: instruktiivi (fi), keinonto (fi)
• French: instructif (fr) m
• German: Instruktiv m
• Russian: инструкти́вный паде́ж m (instruktívnyj padéž), инструкти́в (ru) m (instruktív)

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃s.tʁyk.tiv/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

Adjective

instructive

1. feminine singular of instructif