instructive
Americanadjective
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serving to instruct or inform; conveying instruction, knowledge, or information; enlightening.
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Grammar. noting a case, as in Finnish, whose distinctive function is to indicate means by which.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of instructive
Explanation
Instructive means "useful and informative." Say you're visiting Paris and looking for the Eiffel Tower when a friendly Parisian native helpfully stops to draw you a map. "Merci," you say. "This map is very instructive." In English, anything that informs or enlightens is instructive, but in the Finnish language there's something called the instructive case, which is a whole separate way of saying "by the means of." An example would be a sentence like "I traveled here by horse," which you would say differently than any other kind of sentence you might utter. You would also be speaking Finnish, so the information would only be instructive to Finns.
Vocabulary lists containing instructive
-ive
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stru, struct (make, build)
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stru, struct (make, build)
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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.
Their comments have been instructive; they aren’t looking to flood the market with oil.
From Barron's • May 15, 2026
What’s most instructive about Bedlam’s “Othello” is how it reveals the taut mastery of Shakespeare’s writing.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 3, 2026
This is a film that serves a purpose, and Jones’ amiable writing and Aramayo’s engaging performance dredge up just enough sentimentality while keeping the movie from seeming overly instructive.
From Salon • Apr. 26, 2026
The response is instructive for what it pursued and what it avoided.
From Slate • Apr. 17, 2026
But those average figures conceal big differences among the industries of each country, related to differences in organization—and those differences are very instructive.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
