unproductive

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *né

Proto-Indo-European *n̥-

Proto-Germanic *un-

Proto-West Germanic *un-

Old English un-

Middle English un-

English un-

Proto-Indo-European *per-der.?

Proto-Indo-European *pér

Proto-Indo-European *-o

Proto-Indo-European *pró

Proto-Indo-European *pro-

Proto-Italic *pro-

Late Latin prō-

Proto-Indo-European *dewk-

Proto-Indo-European *déwkti

Proto-Italic *doukō

Late Latin dūcō

Late Latin prōdūcō

Proto-Indo-European *-wós

Proto-Indo-European *-iHwósder.

Late Latin -īvus

Late Latin prōductīvusbor.

English productive

English unproductive

From un- + productive.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˌʌn.pɹəˈdʌk.tɪv/
Audio (US): (file)
Rhymes: -ʌktɪv

Adjective

unproductive (comparative more unproductive, superlative most unproductive)

Not productive; useless; fruitless.
Juggling is an amusing pastime, but generally unproductive.
(linguistics, of affixes, mechanisms of word formation, etc) No longer used to produce new words (see examples).

Usage notes

unproductive is much more common than nonproductive.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

not productive

Albanian: joprodhues (sq)
Catalan: improductiu
Chinese:
Mandarin: 無生產的 / 无生产的 (wúshēngchǎn de)
Czech: neproduktivní
Dutch: onproductief (nl), improductief (nl)
Finnish: tuottamaton (fi)
French: improductif (fr)
German: unproduktiv
Hungarian: terméketlen (hu), improduktív (hu), gyümölcstelen (hu), meddő (hu), szaporátlan (hu)
Italian: improduttivo (it)
Japanese: 非生産的 (hiseisanteki)
Māori: whiro (refers especially to soils), mūhore, tītōhea (of soil), pūweku (of crops), pūeku (of crops)
Plautdietsch: fruchtlooss
Polish: bezproduktywny (pl), nieproduktywny
Portuguese: improdutivo (pt)
Romanian: neproductiv (ro), nefructuos (ro)
Russian: непродукти́вный (ru) (neproduktívnyj), непроизводи́тельный (ru) (neproizvodítelʹnyj)