informative
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of informative
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English: “formative,” from Medieval Latin infōrmātīvus, from Latin infōrmāt(us) “given form to” (past participle of infōrmāre “to give form to, instruct, shape”; see inform 1) + -īvus -ive
Explanation
Use the adjective informative to describe something that gives you some kind of useful information, like an informative book about identifying the mushrooms you find growing wild in the woods near your house. When something is informative, it's usually educational and full of facts — like an informative text book or an informative tour of the Hindu temples of northern India. If you learn a lot from something, you can call it informative. The Latin root of informative is the word informare, which means "to shape, train, instruct, or educate." Something that does those things for you is informative.
Vocabulary lists containing informative
Shape Up: Form
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Keystone Exams: English Composition Glossary
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Speech and Debate
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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.
No single study can fully define the rate of CTE among NFL players, but "Daneshvar and colleagues provide one of the most informative estimates to date," they said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
For archaeologists, an object's location and its relationship to nearby finds can be just as informative as the artifact itself.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
“An individual signal is not all that informative, but when they fire consistently over weeks or even months, the false-positive rate tends to go down,” Goepfert said.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026
All the various formats have their proponents and the conversations about them have been entertaining and informative, but no matter the film or screen size, it’s a very good movie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Self-selected samples are not much more informative than a list of correct predictions by a psychic.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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.
