instructive
Americanadjective
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serving to instruct or inform; conveying instruction, knowledge, or information; enlightening.
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Grammar. noting a case, as in Finnish, whose distinctive function is to indicate means by which.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of instructive
Explanation
Instructive means "useful and informative." Say you're visiting Paris and looking for the Eiffel Tower when a friendly Parisian native helpfully stops to draw you a map. "Merci," you say. "This map is very instructive." In English, anything that informs or enlightens is instructive, but in the Finnish language there's something called the instructive case, which is a whole separate way of saying "by the means of." An example would be a sentence like "I traveled here by horse," which you would say differently than any other kind of sentence you might utter. You would also be speaking Finnish, so the information would only be instructive to Finns.
Vocabulary lists containing instructive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Instructive times for Seattle’s ownership group that must immediately contend with Wilson’s not-so covert desires to explore other franchises before his retirement.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 26, 2021
Instructive occasions and teachable moments abound in life.
From Washington Times • Nov. 8, 2017
Instructive for Strand, too, has been how that paralysis even manifests itself in judgments about the future of his play.
From Washington Post • May 7, 2015
A similar allegorical spirit is evident in a 19th-century playing board called British and Foreign Animals: A New Game, Moral, Instructive and Amusing.
From New York Times • Mar. 2, 2012
She was referred for an answer to the Instructive books in Cole's Book Arcade.
From Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 by Cole, E. W. (Edward William)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
