reductive
of or relating to reduction; serving to reduce or abridge: an urgent need for reductive measures.
of or relating to change from one form to another: reductive chemical processes.
employing an analysis of a complex subject into a simplified, less detailed form; of, pertaining to, or employing reductionism; reductionistic.
something causing or inducing a reductive process.
Origin of reductive
1Other words from reductive
- re·duc·tive·ly, adverb
- re·duc·tive·ness, noun
- an·ti·re·duc·tive, adjective
- non·re·duc·tive, adjective
Words Nearby reductive
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use reductive in a sentence
So that’s a little bit reductive to say that all of technology, all of mathematical shortcuts, have been reduced to just Twitter alone.
That’s a really reductive statement, so I’d never say that, but if you want to say it, I won’t stop you.
Yellowstone is one of TV’s biggest hits. What’s Yellowstone, anyway? | Emily VanDerWerff | November 5, 2021 | VoxThe thought that I stand for all of The Post — a newsroom of over a thousand journalists — is, of course, quite reductive.
One country, endless dishes: A love letter to Indian cuisine | Shikha Subramaniam | September 9, 2021 | Washington PostThis truncated form of information, as opposed to knowledge, that we get presented with online is often really reductive, binary and dogmatic.
Why Coalition, Not Allyship, Is the Necessary Next Step in the Racial Justice Movement | Suyin Haynes | June 22, 2021 | TimeDescribing himself seems "unnecessarily reductive," though he acknowledges self-definition can be empowering for marginalized communities.
Riz Ahmed knows his worth. With the gut-wrenching ‘Sound of Metal,’ he ensures you do, too. | Sonia Rao | December 3, 2020 | Washington Post
Because it's too cautious to dramatize real problems and too reductive to tackle them realistically.
Generic and Superficial ‘Tyrant’ Amerisplains the Middle East | Andrew Romano | June 25, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTBut it would be reductive to make that parallel a blanket one.
He had read a positive review of his own work that nonetheless struck him as reductive and inaccurate.
Constructive Criticism: Reviewing the Idea of Reviewing | Ben Greenman | May 20, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTIt is all too easy to be heavy-handed and reductive, something of which Freud himself was guilty on many occasions.
Eric Foner complains that Spielberg's Lincoln is unacceptably reductive.
Now that the law compels a list of dangerous drugs on the label, the cures proceed admittedly by a reductive principle.
Habits that Handicap | Charles B. TownsAt a boiling heat, in presence of dilute acids, it is split up, yielding a reductive sugar.
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