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 makes the whole occasion more collaborative, encouraging all of your attendees to bring what they can.

From Salon • Jun. 21, 2026

This will involve journals that require verification, hiring and tenure arrangements that reward exposition and checking, and collaborative practices for the verification of proofs.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 14, 2026

Among his recommendations are involving children in collaborative problem solving and giving them opportunities to 'reset', an approach he believes works better than punishment.

From Science Daily • Jun. 13, 2026

Her performance won an Obie Award, and though she insists that she’s not an actor, she demonstrates a sincerity and collaborative grace that many veteran performers would envy.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 12, 2026

It is, however, worth mentioning Parisian composer Etienne Loulie’s startlingly forward- looking collaborative studies with the ‘father’ of the science of acoustics, Joseph Sauveur, in the 1690s.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall