collaborative

American  

[kuh-lab-uh-rey-tiv, -er-uh-tiv] / kəˈlæb əˌreɪ tɪv, -ər ə tɪv /

adjective

1. characterized or accomplished by cooperation or working together.

   collaborative methods;

   a collaborative report.

2. relating to or involving several organizations, groups, people, etc., working together for a common purpose.

   My doctor is now part of a collaborative practice.

   Modern policing is trending toward collaborative law enforcement, where police officers work hand-in-hand with community leaders and neighborhood associations.

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noun

1. a group of people working together for a common purpose.

   The collaborative of doctors was able to gather important new information about the illness by pooling anonymized patient data.

Usage

What does collaborative mean? Collaborative is an adjective that describes an effort in which people work together (that is, one in which they collaborate). Collaborative is often used in a positive context to refer to two or more parties successfully working together on a goal or shared project. It’s also increasingly used as a noun for an organized joint effort. Example: The groundbreaking new album was a collaborative effort by the two musicians, who usually have very different styles.

Other Word Forms

• uncollaborative
  adjective
• collaboratively
  adverb
• uncollaboratively
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of collaborative

collaborate + -ive

Explanation

The adjective collaborative describes something accomplished by working together with others. With a collaborative effort, a big job can be completed in very little time. When you collaborate, you cooperate, or join forces, with other people — working on a project, brainstorming ideas, even assigning responsibility for who will do what. So something that has these qualities is collaborative. From playing in a band to making a movie, feeding the students at a school to building a house, when you work toward a shared goal, it's collaborative.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

collaborative

Professor of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, graduate student researcher Jessica Maung, Ph.D., and a broader collaborative team to investigate what happens inside diseased fat tissue.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026

Lauren Venable says she and her co-workers at SmartStart Education, a K-12 staffing and tutoring company, have been even more collaborative since returning from a retreat in Connecticut last month.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

Turner said that indie bookstores in L.A. are a closely knit group, one that is “remarkably collaborative and collegial.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

A further £102m will go towards optional and collaborative layers - where farms can choose additional, more ambitious environmental work for extra cash.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

Collaborative musical play continues among both boys and girls in international locations, whereas collaborative musical play in the U.S. among boys tends to wane.

From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin