unproductive
Britishadjective
-
(often foll by of) not productive of (anything)
-
not producing goods and services with exchange value
Other Word Forms
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.
Unproductive, ornamental lawn: around 40 million acres of it, or 2 percent of the land area of the Lower 48, according to multiple estimates cited by Garik Gutman, program manager for NASA’s Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program.
From Washington Post • Aug. 24, 2022
Unproductive people waste time because they live in a constant state of incongruity.
From Time • Jul. 16, 2014
Unproductive individuals hostile to mainstream society, ranging from Socrates to Emerson, could have been chemically corrected for their own good to better adhere to the norm.
From Time Magazine Archive
Unproductive expenditure of what was destined to be expended productively, they always characterise as a squandering of resources, and call it profusion and prodigality.
From Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy by Mill, John Stuart
Unproductive coughing, however, can usually be controlled by training.
From Psychotherapy by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
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.
