instructive
Americanadjective
-
serving to instruct or inform; conveying instruction, knowledge, or information; enlightening.
-
Grammar. noting a case, as in Finnish, whose distinctive function is to indicate means by which.
adjective
Other Word Forms
- instructively adverb
- instructiveness noun
- noninstructive adjective
- noninstructively adverb
- noninstructiveness noun
- overinstructive adjective
- overinstructively adverb
- overinstructiveness noun
- uninstructive adjective
- uninstructively adverb
Etymology
Origin of instructive
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.
An instructive Salon piece from a decade ago reveals the film’s designer dressed him to be “a young girl’s dream of a pop star.”
From Salon
As geopolitical tensions ratchet ever higher, it may be instructive to look at just how exposed U.S. markets are to foreign investors.
From MarketWatch
It’s a good definition for what novelists should do, but it’s hardly instructive.
“I don’t regard that as accidental and I do think it is instructive,” Redman says.
From Barron's
His valor is worth remembering on its merits, and the history is instructive about the threats now facing the U.S.
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.