destructive

[De*struc·tive]

If something causes a lot of damage, you can talk about its destructive force or power. Something is destructive when it really messes things up.

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Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth.

Adjective
causing destruction or much damage; "a policy that is destructive to the economy"; "destructive criticism"


a.
Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth.

n.
One who destroys; a radical reformer; a destructionist.


Destructive

De*struc"tive , a. [L. destructivus: cf. F. destructif.] Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth.
Time's destructive power.
Destructive distillation. See Distillation. -- Destructive sorties (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. Syn. -- Mortal; deadly; poisonous; fatal; ruinous; malignant; baleful; pernicious; mischievous.

Destructive

De*struc"tive, n. One who destroys; a radical reformer; a destructionist.

Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth.

One who destroys; a radical reformer; a destructionist.

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Usage Examples

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

The best method for preventing destructive cult involvement is preventative education. If students and the public at large are more aware of destructive groups beforehand they may better understand and resist their recruitment efforts.

It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.

The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive.

The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.

Mental agitations and eating cares are more injurious to health, and destructive of life, than is commonly imagined, and could their effects be collected, would make no inconsiderable figure in the bills of mortality.

Misspelled Form

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Other Usage Examples

Like hatred, jealousy is forbidden by the laws of life because it is essentially destructive.

Ignorance of what real learning is, and a consequent suspicion of it materialism, and a consequent intellectual laxity, both of these have done destructive work in the colleges.

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.

I'm working on my relationship with my mother and father, but my upbringing has been very destructive.

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.

Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.

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