intensive
of, relating to, or characterized by intensity: intensive questioning.
tending to intensify; intensifying.
Medicine/Medical.
increasing in intensity or degree.
instituting treatment to the limit of safety.
noting or pertaining to a system of agriculture involving the cultivation of limited areas, and relying on the maximum use of labor and expenditures to raise the crop yield per unit area (opposed to extensive).
requiring or having a high concentration of a specified quality or element (used in combination): Coal mining is a labor-intensive industry.
Grammar. indicating increased emphasis or force. Certainly is an intensive adverb. Myself in I did it myself is an intensive pronoun.
something that intensifies.
Grammar. an intensive element or formation, as -self in himself, or Latin -tō in iac-tō, “I hurl” from iacō, “I throw.”
Origin of intensive
1Other words from intensive
- in·ten·sive·ly, adverb
- in·ten·sive·ness, noun
- un·in·ten·sive, adjective
- un·in·ten·sive·ly, adverb
Words that may be confused with intensive
- intense, intensive
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use intensive in a sentence
If you’re in an innovative sector that is labor-intensive and your employees are unhappy, they’re going to go to a competitor, and you’re going to lose your advantage.
On her Thursday night broadcast, Maddow noted the rising number of hospitalizations, which have strained hospital staff and caused a shortage of beds inside the intensive care units treating seriously ill covid-19 patients.
As her partner struggles with covid-19, a quarantined Rachel Maddow pleads: ‘Don’t get this thing’ | Katie Shepherd | November 20, 2020 | Washington PostIt was April, and coronavirus cases flooded the New York City hospital where she is an intensive care nurse.
Utah hospital workers rushed to NYC to help with covid in the spring. NYC workers just returned the favor. | Cathy Free | November 19, 2020 | Washington PostHowever, she requested that my husband help her with some labor-intensive jobs.
Miss Manners: Family visit becomes one big project | Judith Martin, Nicholas Martin, Jacobina Martin | November 19, 2020 | Washington PostHowever, labor-intensive value chains such as apparel are vulnerable to pandemics, heat stress, and flood risk.
That Israel is covered intensively by the American press is a bonus, he says.
American authorities have long known al-Bahri; they interrogated him intensively after the 9/11 attacks.
This gave them a correspondingly greater significance, both intensively and extensively.
Elements of Folk Psychology | Wilhelm WundtBefore all it occurs when anything is dealt with intensively, increasing with the increase of the difficulty of the subject.
Criminal Psychology | Hans GrossPopulation was compelled to develop the country somewhat intensively, by reason of the difficulty of westward expansion.
Railroads: Rates and Regulations | William Z. RipleyThe rest was more carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.
The Enemies of Women | Vicente Blasco IbezA given bit of land is said to be cultivated more and more intensively when more and more labor and capital are used on it.
Essentials of Economic Theory | John Bates Clark
British Dictionary definitions for intensive
/ (ɪnˈtɛnsɪv) /
involving the maximum use of land, time, or some other resource: intensive agriculture; an intensive course
(usually in combination) using one factor of production proportionately more than others, as specified: capital-intensive; labour-intensive
agriculture involving or farmed using large amounts of capital or labour to increase production from a particular area: Compare extensive (def. 3)
denoting or relating to a grammatical intensifier
denoting or belonging to a class of pronouns used to emphasize a noun or personal pronoun, such as himself in the sentence John himself did it. In English, intensive pronouns are identical in form with reflexive pronouns
of or relating to intension
physics of or relating to a local property, measurement, etc, that is independent of the extent of the system: Compare extensive (def. 4)
an intensifier or intensive pronoun or grammatical construction
Derived forms of intensive
- intensively, adverb
- intensiveness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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