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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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.
The dot plot reveals individual Fed officials’ interest-rate outlooks, but it was only the first draft of a project that was supposed to evolve into something more informative and better.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
Their goal isn’t to make monitors play catchy tunes, Schlesinger says, but to make alarms easier to distinguish, less irritating and more informative.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
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
Some texts, calls, email, and Facebook status updates are really informative or entertaining.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
