Productive
- Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.
- Yielding good or useful results; constructive.
- Of, or relating to the creation of goods or services.
- (linguistics, of an affix or word construction rule) Consistently applicable to any of an open set of words.
- (medicine) Of a cough, producing mucus or sputum from the respiratory tract.
- (medicine) Of inflammation, producing new tissue.
- (set theory) A type of set of natural numbers, related to mathematical logic.l
Usage notesEdit
In English, the plural suffix “-es” is productive because it can be appended to an open set of words (singular nouns ending in sibilants). Thus, if a new word with that pattern becomes an English noun (e.g. *examplex), it would have a default plural (e.g. *examplexes) because “-es” is productive.