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

It was from Sandrich that Burrows learned how to include the writers and actors in a collaborative process to polish each punchline and scene, moment by moment.

From Salon • Jun. 20, 2026

Their collaborations caught Drake’s attention, and Keith produced the duo’s collaborative 2018 hit “Look Alive,” which hit No. 5 on the Hot 100.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2026

The military says it plans to buy about 150 of the new drones, which it calls collaborative combat aircraft or CCAs, by the end of the decade and about 1,000 total.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 18, 2026

Dr Douglas Jones is co-founder of the Food Allergy Support Team, a nonprofit collaborative of hundreds of allergists across the UK, Europe and further afield.

From BBC • Jun. 13, 2026

Using her as our muse, the students will begin compiling the diaries they’ve been keeping into a collaborative book.

From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers